It's apparent the Bears have had their eyes on Caleb Williams for a long time.
This much is evident in a story by SI.com's Albert Breer detailing the beginning of the connection GM Ryan Poles made with his new quarterback and how the draft went down. It silences many of those who had character doubts about him, this much is certain.
It has been evident since the draft how Williams also had his eye on the Bears.
"This year I watched the Bears a little bit more than I ever had, you know, leading up to this moment throughtout the season," Williams said at Halas Hall a day after being drafted.
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There was a good reason to think it could happen, but early on not necessarily one with a degree of certainty. The Bears had the Panthers' first-round pick dating back the predraft trade last year. But the Panthers weren't necessarily a guaranteed worst team coming out of the box. In fact, even though they started out 0-6, they were highly competitive in the first four and in Week 7 they broke through by beating destiny's 2023 darlings, the Houston Texans, 15-13. IF they could beat Houston, then maybe they'd start to turn it around.
Of course, they didn't and the ability to draft Williams eventually seemed to belong only to the Bears.
So while Williams was paying attention to the Bears seriously, really, for the first time since he'd played football, Poles was going about the process of vetting a potential starting QB even though he had Justin Fields starting.
Breer writes that Poles had people out asking questions about Williams of people who knew him back as far as last fall and even noticed a chance encounter the new Bears QB had with a QB great that made a statement about his personality.
The story goes into detail even about the roots of all this, the trade Poles made in March, 2023 to get the pick from Carolina they eventually used for Williams even with Fields as their QB.
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"It was a move I made, one, because I wanted to continue to evaluate Justin, and two, I knew we had to keep building our football team, Poles told Breer. “We needed more players to close the gap on some of the years prior, with all the trades before. It was just a move to improve the football team.”
And besides, as Poles told Breer, "It ended up being a jackpot situation."
It's a word many have associated with the Bears-Panthers trade, but a bit startling even to see it come from Poles' mouth.
The details of this origin story should be of interest to all Bears fans and also can be an indicator of where they're going now with a new player taking snaps.
Anyone who thinks of Williams as that possible "Hollywood" type focused on his own gain and statistics will be pleasantly surprised by the story of his chance encounter at Notre Dame.
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