Former USC star Caleb Williams won’t hear his name called first for the Chicago Bears for a few more days, but he’s had several weeks of near-surety that he’ll be the No. 1 prospect selected in the 2024 NFL Draft. The moment the Chicago Bears decided to trade former first-rounder Justin Fields away to the Pittsburgh Steelers was when every NFL analyst in the country finally put Williams’ name in ink on their mock drafts.
Discussing that moment on Pivot Podcast, Williams opened up about his reaction to the Fields trade and how he found out.
“My phone explodes,” Williams said. “I ended up calling a couple people and was just like, ‘well, we know where their mind and heart is at this instance.’ Let’s prepare and get ready and handle things accordingly and still do our due diligence on the situation.”
“In that moment, it was kind of like ‘wow’ because I didn’t do my top-30 visit yet; they didn’t have my medicals and things like that,” he added. “They have it all now; it was nothing. And I had a good time on my top 30, but it was interesting right in that moment because it was so unexpected in that instance.”
Bears’ Fields trade tipped off first-round choice
The future of Fields was one of the biggest NFL question marks this offseason, with Chicago owning the No. 1 overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft. Ultimately, the Bears opted to trade him for a 2025 sixth-round pick that could turn into a fourth-rounder based on playing time this season.
After Chicago executed the Fields trade, it became very obvious that the team would go after the former Heisman Trophy winner in the draft. Shortly after the trade, new Bears addition Keenan Allen popped up at Williams’ Pro Day and the Las Vegas oddsmakers shifted the odds accordingly.
Williams met with the Bears at the NFL Scouting Combine and spoke highly of his meetings with Matt Eberflus and Ryan Poles.
“They were awesome,” Williams told reporters. “I spoke more about ball and things like that, just because these interviews were so short. It was more about them getting to know me, getting to test my mental, that I know the base things of what it takes to be a quarterback in the NFL.”
At the collegiate level, Williams was prolific. He totaled 50 touchdowns as a sophomore and found the end zone 120 times – 93 with his arm, 27 with his legs – during three seasons at both Oklahoma and USC.
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