Caleb Williams has spent his entire football life chasing.
It started at age 9 when he began asking what it would take to become an NFL quarterback and continued through high school and college. As a pro, he’s been striving to catch up to the gigantic potential everyone has seen him, and he’d be the first to say he’s not there yet.
Those are dreamy, overarching goals, but on a more practical level he’s still trying to prove he’s the best quarterback of the star-studded 2024 draft class, which had six go in the top 12 picks. The Bears took him No. 1, but he’s been trailing someone ever since.
First it was No. 2 pick Jayden Daniels of the Commanders racing to the front while Williams struggled under former coach Matt Eberflus. Last season, Williams was the most thrilling player from that class, but No. 3 pick Drake Maye was the most proficient.
Williams can gain ground on Maye when the Bears host the Patriots on Thursday. It’s a rare matchup for the two friends, who faced off as rookies and won’t see each other again — unless in a Super Bowl — until 2028 at the soonest.
Williams has long downplayed the competition within his draft class, and he’s faced questions about it since Daniels got off to a blazing start as a rookie while Williams sputtered. As Daniels struggled with injuries and inconsistency, Maye’s rise positioned him as Williams’ true rival going forward.
Maye doesn’t have Williams’ collection of viral videos — highlights that include jaw-dropping passes and epic comebacks — but he was the runner-up for MVP last season and led the Patriots to the Super Bowl. There’s no doubt watching one of his peers play in that game fueled him for this season.
Maye was quick to pick up many of the qualities Bears coach Ben Johnson has been pushing with Williams over the last two seasons.
He leads the 2024 draft class in completion percentage (68.7), yards passing per game (225.9) and passer rating (101.3), and he is second only to the Broncos’ Bo Nix with 57 touchdown passes. The only downside thus far is that he’s had issues with interceptions and has seven already this season.
Johnson has hammered to Williams that his standard is completing 70% of his passes; Maye has done that 17 times in his career already and last season led the NFL at 72% overall.
Williams has momentum, but needs to keep that going to catch Maye:
- He is fourth in completion percentage at 61.2, trailing Daniels and Nix. Williams was last in the NFL in that category last season, but leads the league at 72.5% currently.
- With big steps in production over the last two seasons, including coming off a 300-yard game against the Falcons on Sunday that earned him NFC Offensive Player of the Week, Williams is right behind Maye with 221.5 yards per game.
- Williams is fourth in passer rating at 89.9 — Daniels is second, then the Falcons’ Michael Penix — and while that statistic doesn’t define a quarterback, it speaks to efficiency.
Williams has, to his credit, been the sharpest in his class at minimizing interceptions and has just 14 in 1,221 passes. He also is ahead of Maye in yards rushing at 26.7 per game, though Daniels leads the group at 49.4.
Maye can’t match Williams’ agility and uncanny ability to shake would-be tacklers as he buys time, but he is one of the more mobile quarterbacks in the league and has been sacked just 11 times this season.
“I don't know if I could do some of the things he can do,” Maye said. “He's special in the way he can move and escape and evade pressure, and him throwing on the run is pretty cool to watch.”
Patriots coach Mike Vrabel was equally impressed and rejected out of hand a question this week about Williams’ supposedly limited mobility while playing through a hamstring injury.
“I’m not buying that lie,” Vrabel said after watching film of Williams against the Falcons. “I hope our players aren’t, either. He’s as fast as he needs to be.”
Other than Williams, Bears general manager Ryan Poles is the one who most needs to win the argument about the best quarterback of the 2024 class.
The Bears were set on Williams shortly after the end of the 2023 season, and talks already were well underway to trade Justin Fields. They evaluated all six of the first-round quarterbacks, though Poles attended the pro days for only Williams, Daniels and J.J. McCarthy. There was no wavering from Williams, and Maye wasn’t in the mix.
Williams proved to be a better passer than Fields immediately upon arrival — it was clear in training camp — but that’s never been the question. The conversation around Williams isn’t whether he’s better than Fields, Mitch Trubisky or even Jay Cutler.
When a team has the No. 1 overall pick, that player has to be rare talent capable of leading the charge to a championship. He can’t be anyone’s shadow, especially not a fellow quarterback from his draft class. Williams’ chase continues Thursday with the hope that by the end of the season, everyone else will be chasing him instead.
