Caleb Williams did not want to go to the Bears leading up to 2024 NFL Draft, forthcoming book reports

A forthcoming book by ESPN reporter Seth Wickersham says Caleb Williams and his family were so concerned about the quarterback being taken by the Bears with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft that they considered finding a way to circumvent the draft entirely.

Wickersham’s book, “American Kings: A Biography of the Quarterback,” is due to come out in September.

It provides a detailed look at what it means to be a quarterback at various levels, from high school to college to the NFL, and what it’s like for legends in retirement, according to an ESPN article

posted Thursday, which details what the book says about Williams’ situation leading up to the 2024 draft.

According to the book, Williams and his family were not keen on the former USC quarterback and consensus No. 1 overall pick that year, held by the Bears, going to Chicago.

The Bears have a long, well-known history of failing to develop quarterbacks.

“Chicago is the place quarterbacks go to die,” Carl Williams, Caleb’s father, told Wickersham in the months leading up to the draft, the book says.

“I don’t want my son playing for the Bears,” Williams’ dad also told several agents in 2024, according to the book.

Caleb Williams also said he was was unsure if he could work with then-Bears offensive coordinator Shane Waldron, according to the book, and that he hit it off with Minnesota Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell prior to the draft, telling his father, “I need to go to the Vikings.”

The book also says Carl Williams met with labor lawyers and agents, looking for a way around the NFL’s collective bargaining agreement, and even considered if his son could bypass the 2024 draft and sign with the United Football League, then sign with whatever NFL team he wanted as an unrestricted free agent in 2025.

However, the book says, Bears general manager Ryan Poles reaffirmed to Caleb Williams that Chicago was going to draft him. And after the quarterback made a pre-draft visit to the Bears facility, the books says, he believed he could be part of the process needed to turn around a franchise that hasn’t won a playoff game since after the 2010 season.

“I can do it for this team,” Williams told his dad, according to the book. “I’m going to go to the Bears.”

Of course, that’s just what happened, and Williams put together a very good rookie year in 2024, throwing 20 touchdown passes to six interceptions and completing 62.5% of his passes for 3,541 yards, despite being sacked a league-high 68 times. He also rushed for 489 yards.

But the reasons for Williams’ initial reticence to go to the Bears were made somewhat prophetic during a tumultuous 2024 season in which the team endured a 10-game losing streak, firing first Waldron and then head coach Matt Eberflus during the skid.

Things would appear to be on a much better footing going into 2025, however, after the Bears hired former Detroit Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson, considered to be one of the brightest young offensive minds in the game, to be their new head coach.

The Bears also made several offseason moves to bolster their offensive line in front of their hopeful franchise quarterback. That included trading with the Kansas City Chiefs for two-time All-Pro guard Joe Thuney, a four-time Super Bowl champion who’s blocked for Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes, in the offseason.

According to ESPN, the Bears declined to comment on Wickersham’s book and the revelations about Williams.

And while the revelations — coming out weeks after the 2025 draft and a day after the 2025 schedule release, during the NFL’s “slow season” — are sure to generate headlines for a time, the fact always remains the same: Winning cures everything.

So if Williams and the new coaching staff can team up to lead the Bears back to the playoffs, and especially back to the Super Bowl, the reports of Williams not wanting to come to Chicago in the first place will be a footnote, filed under “all’s well that ends well.”