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Carmen Vitali
NFC North Reporter
Caleb Williams has a head start on this whole quarterback thing.
Williams said he wanted to be the No. 1 pick in the NFL Draft when he was a child.
He and his father, as a result, have been in and out of various quarterback camps since, molding Williams into exactly what he wanted to be.
Well.
Mission accomplished.
The Chicago Bears made Williams the first overall pick of the 2024 NFL Draft and what’s more, Williams worked with his now-offensive coordinator Shane Waldron as far back as 2017 in one of those aforementioned camps, the QB Collective. It means he has a head start on the ever-important chemistry between OC and QB.
Going further, the Bears all but handed him the playbook in early April when Williams took his one pre-draft visit to Chicago. He went to no other teams. General manager Ryan Poles and head coach Matt Eberflus took Williams through the first installs, sent him back with homework, and let him get familiarized with Waldron’s scheme in the ensuing weeks.
And Williams dove right in, realizing there were going to be new things he’ll have to master at the NFL level. For example, he’ll need to go under center more, something Lincoln Riley’s offense at USC didn’t have him doing much of. There are also new cadences, new signals, new checks, new concepts, all of which he will not only need to understand himself but also be able to relay to his teammates.
But with the playbook already in his hands, it doesn’t look like that’s going to be a problem.
“I think the one thing Caleb has shown is that he can be in all sorts of backfield alignments,” said Waldron on Saturday. “He did a great job at his pro day, he’s played quarterback his whole life, so I think the biggest thing will be just the footwork and really mastering that first step from under center, something that he’s taken pride in already and really gotten a jump on in this rookie minicamp. But he’s played the position…
Source link : https://www.foxsports.com/stories/nfl/caleb-williams-ahead-of-the-curve-bears-franchise-qb
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Publish date : 2024-05-13 20:50:57
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