Caleb Williams, Shedeur Sanders Matchup After NFL Schedule Reveal?

Williams and Sanders are two of the most notable college football quarterbacks of the past decade, with Williams having dominated and won a Heisman Trophy and various national awards at USC under coach Lincoln Riley and Sanders having been named an All-American, Big-12 Offensive Player of the Year, and Davey O’Brien Award winner. The two quarterbacks played each other once in college as USC beat Colorado 48-41 in 2023.

Beyond the field, Williams and Sanders are incredibly popular, each holding a slew of prominent endorsements.

The potential for the Bears to be in the playoff picture, needing a win over a Browns team that projects to not be very good, but is fielding a defense led by former Defensive Player of the Year, defensive end Myles Garrett, and rookie quarterback Shedeur Sanders, would be a major storyline to monitor.

If and when Sanders makes his debut, it’ll be a massive story, but locking horns with Caleb Williams would garner a national audience. Neither team has many primetime slots, but this could potentially be a contest that gets flexed into a national window to maximize viewership with two large names.

Williams and the Bears are already under a microscope, but with the improvements they’ve made across the board, and should those improvements materialize into wins, the expectations only grow larger. Williams and Johnson can help catapult the Bears back into national prominence, and it’s stages like the potential matchup against a lightning rod like Sanders that could send the comeback into overdrive. 

Structure and the importance of supporting cast has been emphasized by the Bears this offseason and while the schedule is tough, Williams is still expected to mark a considerable amount of improvement this year. If he does, the level Williams reaches could have Williams in the Pro Bowl conversation and potentially the Bears in the playoff hunt.