Caleb Williams addresses report he didn’t want to be drafted by Bears, says ‘I wanted to come here’

Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams used his media availability Wednesday to address the elephant in the room. “Ideas” was how Williams described a portion of “American Kings: A Biography of the Quarterback,” a book by ESPN’s Seth Wickersham that claimed the Williams family explored plans with the goal of not being drafted to Chicago.

Carl Williams, Caleb’s father, was quoted in the book as saying, “Chicago is the place quarterbacks go to die.” The book also details a period during which Williams and his family considered avoiding the 2024 NFL Draft entirely, going as far as to meet with lawyers to figure out a plan, including potentially signing with a team in the United Football League for a year.

“For this to come out, it’s been a distraction,” Williams said. “Coming up here and talking about it and addressing it is important today. … All that went down, all that was said, yeah, I had a good visit at the other place, Minnesota.”

Williams claimed that once he actually took his visit with the Bears, he quickly made up his mind that Chicago was the right place to be. His family simply took a look at all the options available at the time, but ultimately, a desire to come to Chicago was a “deliberate and determined answer.”

“But something that keeps getting lost and not being addressed the way it needs to be is the fact that I went on that visit first, then came here,” Williams said. “After I came here, I went back home, talked to my dad, and all of the things that were supposed to be these big things that everybody has been talking about recently never happened in the sense that, one, they were thoughts. They were all ideas. I think if you’re in this situation or your son or daughter, I think you think about all of the options and look at the history and facts and all of these different things, those are thoughts that go throughout your head in different situations. All of those were thoughts and after I came for my visit here it was a deliberate and determined answer that I had, that I wanted to come here.”

In the book, Williams was quoted as having concerns about his ability to succeed under then-Chicago offensive coordinator Shane Waldron. Waldron lasted only nine games into the 2024 season before being fired.

Williams would end his rookie season with 3,541 yards passing, creeping close to the 4,000-yard mark, a feat that has never been accomplished by a Bears quarterback.

The challenge of breaking Chicago free from a history of subpar quarterback play was a determining factor in wanting to come to Chicago, the 23-year-old said.

“It’s a challenge to come in here and try and turn it around,” Williams said. “That was the main goal of all of that. Through all of what was going on and all that happened last year and previous years, I think that was enticing. I think that was something that was glaring to me. I wanted to come here and be the guy and be a part and a reason of why the Chicago Bears turned this thing around.

“…I wanted to be here, I love being here. I love my teammates. I love all the people who got me here.”