Bears Planning Caleb Williams Extension

Fifth-year GM Ryan Poles is delegating responsibility of outlining a Caleb Williams extension this offseason. The 2024 No. 1 overall pick cannot be paid until January 2027. The Bears will have more intel on what a Williams extension will look like after the 2026 season, but after the former Heisman winner’s breakthrough 2025 slate, Chicago will be spending this offseason looking into how a second QB contract — a rare development for this particular franchise — will be arranged.

“It’s really a summer project,’’ Poles said, via the Chicago Sun-Times’ Patrick Finley. ‘‘[Bears VP of football administration] Matt Feinstein is digging into it now. We’ve had some preliminary [internal] conversations because we want to take some of these things into consideration as we build the team.”

Chicago has run into problems at quarterback for ages. No second contracts were given to first-rounders Justin Fields and Mitchell Trubisky, and Rex Grossman only signed a one-year deal in 2008 after underwhelming on his rookie pact. Cade McNown, a 1999 first-rounder, fared worse than that trio. Chicago received eight years from Jay Cutler after a blockbuster trade, but the rocket-armed passer was rarely viewed as an upper-crust option. Williams represents the latest swing, coming via Poles’ savvy 2023 trade-down move that gave the Panthers Bryce Young, and his 2025 brought considerable optimism.

Leading the Bears to an overtime period in the divisional round, Williams finished his second season with 27 touchdown passes and seven interceptions. He averaged only 6.9 yards per attempt, however, and completed just 58.1% of his passes — down four percentage points from a shaky 2024 showing — while ranking 16th in QBR. But Williams certainly showed progress on the whole under new HC Ben Johnson. The Bears will have another season to evaluate the former Lincoln Riley pupil.

Four- and five-year deals are the norm among quarterbacks as of late. Patrick Mahomes‘ 10-year extension represents an extreme outlier, while no one else has matched even Josh Allen‘s six-year deal since the Bills authorized that in 2021. Poles was with the Chiefs when they constructed the atypical Mahomes deal (10 years, $450MM). It featured a unique structure that brought rolling guarantees for the superstar passer, and that structure has benefited the Chiefs annually. Williams’ camp will be unlikely to go for a team-friendly accord, however.

Williams’ camp made some headlines in 2024 and ’25 related to his Bears status. The QB’s team attempted to have the Bears include a no-franchise tag clause in his rookie deal; that proved to be a nonstarter for the team. Williams, who does not have an agent, also attempted to skirt tax implications from his rookie deal in 2024.

Reports coming out of a Seth Wickersham book (American Kings: A Biograph of the Quarterback) also indicated Caleb’s father Carl Williams attempted to steer the QB clear of Chicago due to the Bears’ struggles developing passers. Carl Williams discussed this with Archie Manning, who famously helped Eli Manning avoid the Chargers in 2004, and expressed issues with the NFL’s rookie wage scale.

But the Bears having a quarterback worthy of an extension will be a win in itself. It will mark a new roster-building chapter for Chicago, which has ridden with rookie QB deals (excepting the Mike Glennon year) for nearly a decade. However, once the team can begin negotiating with Williams in earnest next year, eventful talks figure to commence. Although the Bears extended Cutler twice, they will be in for a new challenge with Williams given the skyrocketing QB market in the years since.

“I’m sure it’ll present challenges,’’ Poles said of Williams’ future negotiations. ‘‘We haven’t gotten that far. But if and when we get to that point, we’ll embrace that challenge. Our offense is going to slowly get really expensive. You want to continue to have young talent to come in and help us out on defense.”