Caleb Williams allegedly wanted to force a trade to Vikings before the 2024 NFL Draft

Caleb Williams allegedly wanted to force a trade to Vikings before the 2024 NFL Draft

Despite an uneven senior season at USC, Caleb Williams entered the 2024 NFL Draft as the unquestioned top player in the class. The Chicago Bears had the No. 1 pick, acquired by the Carolina Panthers as a result of a trade in March of 2023 that allowed the Panthers to move up eight spots from No. 9 to No. 1 in the 2023 NFL Draft.

Lo and behold, the Panthers sucked the following year regardless, the Bears not so much and that was where we were a year later.

However, Williams apparently had serious apprehension about going to Chicago, which has not won a playoff game since 2010, according to ESPN’s Seth Wickersham, author of American Kings: A Biography of the Quarterback, scheduled to be published in September.

The team that he allegedly preferred? The Minnesota Vikings, an NFC North rival of Chicago’s.

“Quarterback Caleb Williams was so concerned about being picked by the Chicago Bears in 2024 that he and his family weighed circumventing the entire NFL draft, consulting with lawyers to figure out a way around the league’s collective bargaining agreement while considering signing with the United Football League, details from a forthcoming book reveal,” ESPN published Thursday.

“(Caleb Williams’ father, Carl) went to great lengths to try to circumvent the NFL draft, Wickersham writes, wanting to give his son an opportunity to choose his future employer. The Bears had not drafted a star quarterback since the 1980s, and their recent draft selections, Mitchell Trubisky and Justin Fields, didn’t pan out. Carl Williams was worried that, with the franchise’s history, stadium uncertainty and offensive performances under then-head coach Matt Eberflus, Caleb Williams wouldn’t have the organizational support to succeed.

“‘I don’t want my son playing for the Bears,’ Williams told several agents in 2024. Looking for a way around the league’s collective bargaining agreement, Carl Williams spoke with Archie Manning, who helped Eli Manning assert a measure of control over his eventual team in 2004. He also met with labor lawyers and agents — and even considered whether his son could sign with the United Football League and become an unrestricted NFL free agent in 2025 to be able to pick a team. 

“After an up-and-down final season at USC, Caleb Williams was unsure of what he wanted to do as he prepared for the 2024 draft. At the NFL combine that year, he met with Minnesota Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell. The two hit it off, and Caleb Williams began to dream of what it would be like to play for Minnesota.

‘I need to go to the Vikings,’ he told his father. ‘Let’s do it,’ his father replied. But both Caleb and Carl knew that a trade to a divisional rival was extremely unlikely. … But Caleb was concerned that if they did try and the Bears refused to trade him, it would make a tough situation worse. In the end, Caleb Williams told Wickersham, ‘I wasn’t ready to nuke the city.‘”

You know the old adage, “You see something new every day”? Or when people say, “Well, that’s not something you expect to see every day.”

Well, this is exactly what that is for me.

Minnesota owned the No. 11 pick in the 2024 NFL Draft. It was widely expected to pick a quarterback given Kirk Cousins‘ uncertain future coming off an achilles tear. Minnesota eventually traded up one spot to take former Michigan quarterback JJ McCarthy, followed by trading back into the first round to take star Alabama EDGE rusher Dallas Turner.

McCarthy has yet to take a snap with his new team because of a meniscus tear he suffered in the preseason. Williams was the most sacked quarterback in the NFL last season, completing 62.5 percent of his passes for 3,541 yards, 20 touchdowns and six interceptions.

I wouldn’t have wanted to go to Chicago either if I were him with how that organization’s been run, but that’s just me. At least Ben Johnson’s in the building to run the ship instead of Matt Eberflus, who was an unmitigated disaster calling the shots on the sideline.

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