Do the Bears have the QB room, coaching staff to help support Caleb Williams?

Of all the NFL quarterback coaches The Athletic has spoken to leading up to the draft, none question Caleb Williams’ ability. “His talent is undeniable,” said one QB coach who played in the league. “The arm, the escapability. There is a lot of ‘wow’ stuff there.”

But there is some skepticism about his fit with the Chicago Bears and, more specifically, how good of a situation the former USC star will be entering. The QB coach pointed to recent examples of young quarterbacks who have thrived, ranging from Patrick Mahomes to Brock Purdy to C.J. Stroud, and compared them to those who have struggled. Think Sam Darnold, Justin Fields and Bryce Young. The coach stressed how important the ecosystem is around the quarterback.

“If guys don’t have like a C.J. Stroud-type start, and they don’t have the right people, right system, right person talking to them every day, right composed demeanor from the head coach, supportive — all of that, it can really ruin a young quarterback,” the coach told The Athletic.

The coach thought so many key elements of the Bears’ dynamic appeared to be stacked against Williams.

“Is the head coach for the Bears safe? You have a first-year coordinator. It’s not like he’s going to a place that’s stable,” he said. “It’s not like the Jordan Love takeover (in Green Bay), where everything was pretty much in place. Same system. The head coach calls plays — ‘I’ve been in these meetings my whole career. I’m ready to take over.’

“It’s not gonna be like that in Chicago. Defensive head coach on the hot seat. New OC. There was quarterback stuff with the last No. 1 guy with Justin Fields. Half of the team wanted him to stay. Maybe half of them didn’t. Those things are huge factors for a young QB coming in at the start of his career. You have to have stability somewhere, whether it’s the head coach, the system, the QB coach, whatever that is, you need it.

“Look at Purdy. He goes into that situation and all of those boxes were checked: solid organization, good defense. That play caller and developer of the talent knew exactly what he was looking at and looking for and allowed him to use that talent in the right way to get the job done. Those things are critical. If Purdy goes to the Panthers, we don’t know him right now.”

The Bears are all too familiar with having to figure out the best way to usher in a rookie quarterback. They will be the second team to draft a quarterback in the first round three times in eight years, joining the Cleveland Browns.

From the outside, with Matt Eberflus putting together a record of 10-24 in two years, it may look like 2024 is a win-or-else season. But Bears ownership doesn’t want to create a similar environment that hindered the development of their previous two first-round QBs.

Mitch Trubisky joined a lame-duck coaching staff in 2017, as John Fox was fired after Trubisky’s rookie season. Four years later, it was Matt Nagy — along with general manager Ryan Pace — who was fired after Fields’ rookie season.

The relationship in the front office between chairman George McCaskey, president/CEO Kevin Warren, general manager Ryan Poles and Eberflus is stronger than what the Bears had in 2017. In 2021, there was a lot of uncertainty with Nagy, who was on rocky footing after back-to-back seasons with long losing streaks.

McCaskey is intimately aware of that recent history. While it can be argued that the Bears would’ve been better off moving on from Eberflus after the 2023 season and starting a new era with an offensive-minded head coach to pair with Williams, it’s unlikely — barring some total disaster — that Eberflus’ job would be in jeopardy after 2024. The Bears will want to avoid that cycle.

Offensive coordinator and play caller Shane Waldron got to Los Angeles for Jared Goff’s second season. The next year, the Rams were in the Super Bowl. Atop his resume is his recent work with Geno Smith in Seattle. But he hasn’t had a situation like this, calling plays and running an offense for a rookie. He has worked with QB Collective, however, where Williams has trained.

New Bears offensive coordinator Shane Waldron spent the past three seasons in Seattle, most notably working with quarterback Geno Smith. (Steph Chambers / Getty Images)

The Bears didn’t get it right with Trubisky or Fields. Now they’ll get Williams. And they’ve worked to ensure the building has the right support system, because a rookie will need it.

“Caleb has a lot of stuff that he is going to have to break in the NFL,” the quarterback coach said. “Now, look, that’s part of what you love about him. … Those are great plays in college, but not when Myles Garrett is rushing you. In the league, it’s gonna be chip-help and all of these mechanisms that are used to try and block these guys up front. It doesn’t look the same to a young quarterback because you don’t have to worry about anybody in the Pac-12. Maybe there’s one good pass rusher at Utah or Washington or Oregon, if they were even that good at all. The pocket feels different in the NFL. It looks different. What are the Bears doing to get this young man off to a positive start? Let’s not take his confidence away too much. Let’s not ask him to save us.”

The quarterback Williams often gets compared to, Mahomes, entered the NFL as a top-10 pick and has led the Kansas City Chiefs to three Super Bowls, won three Super Bowl MVPs and two NFL MVP awards. But the quarterback coach pointed out the former Texas Tech star had a couple of big things going for him that Williams probably won’t.

For starters, Mahomes got to sit for a year behind a former Pro Bowl QB in Alex Smith, who was once the first pick of the draft and a respected leader on the team. “That is critical,” said the coach, who added that when he took the quarterback coaching job at his team, he made sure his franchise had a very seasoned, well-liked guy who had played for a decade-plus in the NFL to be there for his young starting QB. “Mahomes had a really good pro example to be around there in Alex.”

The Bears have nothing close to Smith in their quarterback room. Tyson Bagent will be the No. 2, an undrafted, Division II player entering his second NFL season. They signed Brett Rypien, who has four career starts in four seasons.

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On the one hand, Williams won’t have to enter a quarterback competition. There won’t be any awkwardness about QB1 and QB2. He’ll be the guy. And the veteran rooms with Chicago’s previous first-round quarterbacks weren’t necessarily ideal in Year 1.

Trubisky joined veteran Mike Glennon, who was signed as a free agent to start and then seemingly blindsided by the choice of Trubisky, but third-stringer Mark Sanchez was considered an asset in the building. Andy Dalton was the starter when Fields got to Chicago, with Super Bowl MVP Nick Foles as the No. 3. The Bears thought that dynamic would benefit Fields, but it also was uncomfortable. Fans wanted Fields to start over Dalton from Day 1. Foles, acquired in a trade the previous year to be the starter, like any competitor, wasn’t shy about his displeasure with dropping to QB3.

The other big thing was Mahomes had the benefit of being coached by Andy Reid, one of the sharpest offensive minds in football.

No one is comparing Eberflus and Waldron to Reid, but at this time last year, we weren’t talking about DeMeco Ryans as a Coach of the Year candidate or Bobby Slowik as one of the league’s top play callers.

Williams’ quarterbacks coach, Kerry Joseph, had a long playing career in the CFL, but this is his first NFL position coaching job. He was Seattle’s assistant quarterbacks coach the past two seasons.

Poles and Eberflus weren’t in Chicago for Trubisky and Fields’ rookie seasons, but they want to have the right locker room — and quarterback room — for Williams.

“Caleb is going to a locker room where you’re wondering who is the vet that is gonna tell him that he is screwing up,” the QB coach said. “Who is the vet that will give him confidence for doing something right? Who is that for him? It is about the room. It’s about your peers — what they’re saying, what they’re seeing, what they’ve seen, stories they can tell. ‘Man, this happened to me five years ago in the playoffs. Man, Vic Fangio and this family of defenses do this. This family of defenses does that.’

“When you come into the NFL as a rookie quarterback, you need people around you that have this wealth of knowledge. When you’re sitting down and eating lunch with them — he is going to be playing against the Green Bay Packers for the first time ever, the Detroit Lions, all that stuff inside the division.

“I was looking to see, who are they bringing in for (Williams), who is that veteran? I don’t care if it’s Jameis Winston, whoever. Somebody who has been in there and done it, and can say, ‘Hey, Caleb. Hey, man, come over here.’ That’s what you’re hoping to see that they’re not making the same mistake again that they made with Justin. It’s critical, man, that a young quarterback has the right type of example, the right peers, the right room to have success early. Brett Rypien may be an awesome guy, but will Caleb Williams respect him? I don’t know. He might, but who will be that guy for him that can say, ‘Hey, Caleb, you’re screwing up, man. Hey, Caleb, I get here at 6 in the morning. Where were you?’”

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While Bagent might not have the requisite experience to provide that type of insight as a No. 2 QB, one of the Bears’ under-the-radar coaching hires should help the dynamic in the room. Longtime backup quarterback Ryan Griffin was hired as an offensive assistant working with QBs and receivers. Griffin entered the NFL in 2013 with the New Orleans Saints before joining the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2015. He was in New Orleans with Drew Brees, in Tampa for Winston’s rookie season, and has a Super Bowl ring having backed up Tom Brady.

He does not have anywhere near the playing experience, however, of some other veteran quarterbacks on active rosters with rookies. He attempted four passes in a decade in the NFL. But he does know what it looks like when it’s done right.

If it’s not Griffin, Bagent or Rypien, the Bears can also lean on a veteran receiver to be a good sounding board for Williams.

“Could be Keenan Allen. It happens that way sometimes,” the coach said. “I stood on the table for us to sign certain guys. You’ve gotta have these leaders at every position. Yeah, you gotta have superstars. They make it go, but when we’re not around, who’s leading them? Who’s talking to them?

“In pro ball, other than in the season, we’re not around them. This isn’t college football. They’re not in our offices hanging around or coming over to your house in the offseason. These dudes go home and have their own separate lives. They’re more apt to be in a peer group than come upstairs and converse with us, and even if you don’t have a really young quarterback, you’re trying to build that atmosphere where he (the starter) is comfortable and safe all the time, whether they’re lifting together, pregame in our locker room, in the meetings, at meals, at the walk-throughs, where he can be comfortable and truly himself. That is the environment that I wanted to make sure we build for our guy for his growth and development.”

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The Bears might not have a veteran offensive line or an “alpha” on that side of the ball, but they do rely heavily on DJ Moore and tight end Cole Kmet as players who lead by example. They were part of the contingent that had dinner with Williams during his visit to Lake Forest.

Williams’ starting center will likely be Ryan Bates, who was in Buffalo for Josh Allen’s career arc. Backup Coleman Shelton has watched what Matthew Stafford has done in LA.

The defense is more loaded with experience, from Pro Bowlers Montez Sweat and Jaylon Johnson to guys who played many playoff games at previous stops like linebackers T.J. Edwards and Tremaine Edmunds.

The Bears know what has plagued them in the past, and their building isn’t perfectly situated for a rookie quarterback. But not many teams that pick No. 1 are. Poles, who was in Kansas City for Mahomes’ first few seasons, knows it has to be a priority.

“I think as an entire organization, everyone’s got to be on the same page with how we support a young quarterback in a big market like ours,” he told The Athletic last month. “How do we make sure that his focus, his priorities are on what they need to be, which is to be the best quarterback they could possibly be and make sure that he’s not getting pulled in so many different directions that he can’t make the main thing the main thing.”

(Top photo: Sean M. Haffey / Getty Images)