The Caleb Williams Drama Is Overrated: The Gut Check No. 664

Caleb Williams' on-field play is not remotely bad. The drama made about him is.

Matt Waldman's The Caleb Williams Drama Is Overrated: The Gut Check No. 664 Matt Waldman Published 10/28/2025

© Geoff Burke-Imagn Images Caleb Williams

Caleb Williams Is Not Remotely Bad

NFL Red Zone is entertaining. It's a limited analysis tool, at best, and I'm being generous. 

If Red Zone were Cliff's Notes for the NFL, it would only contain a plot summary. If there was a Red Zone for songs, it would only supply the chorus for any tune you accessed on Spotify. 

If Red Zone were a restaurant, it would be an ice cream shop with three flavors. If it were a quarterback prospect, it would be Zach Wilson in shorts and a t-shirt throwing against air and wowing the ratings facilitators of NFL Draft coverage into a frenzy. 

I've got a good slogan for Red Zone-based analysts: Fake it til you make it! 

Red Zone is fun, but it skews perspective. A player can have a strong performance between the 20s, but if his team isn't performing well in the red zone, that player can look a lot less promising than the reality of his game. 

When I hear about the commentary regarding Caleb Williams, I suspect too many people are watching Red Zone. 

He's bad, and Ben Johnson knows it. His performances are uneven. He's not consistent enough. 

Wrong. Wrong. And, yes, wrong.

Folks are looking at his 61 percent completion percentage, 7.3 yards per attempt, and his 9 passing touchdowns as solid but not in the same tier as fellow rookies Drake Maye or Bo Nix this year. These comparisons are as consequential as basing player analysis on Red Zone. 

Nix is in Year 2 of their offenses with legitimate offensive architects on staff. Maye's experience working under center was in an offense that had better fundamental structures in place that you'd expect from an NFL scheme. 

While the coaching wasn't ideal for Maye and his receivig corps didn't have the names we saw in Chicago, Williams' experience was an abject disaster. The Bears had a lot of plays where there wasn't a drop plan tied to the routes. 

A quarterback's timing, accuracy, placement, decision-making, and pocket movement are all predicated on footwork. If there's no clear starting point with the opening drop, the timing with everything else is thrown off. 

This was such a problem with the Titans' offense this year that Brian Callahan got fired.

The Bears offensive architect last year was the equivalent of a waiter posing as an architect. Comparing Maye's bad scheming to Williams' situation is like comparing a grape to a kumquat. 

Fake it 'til you make it! 

Let's look at passer rating in key situations -- 3rd/4th down, 4-12 yards to go. Plays where the team expects a good quarterback to shine. 

How's that for a dose of reality? I'm going to show you 17 of Williams' 38 throws from the Ravens game. Out of those 38 decisions, there was only one truly bad decision. 

Williams, despite the Bears missing four defensive backs -- all starters or high-end contributors -- did a good job of keeping the Bears competitive while demonstrating a lot of maturity, craft, and dynamic play-making against the Ravens. 

Caleb Williams is not remotely bad. If anything, he's a dynasty value if the Red Zone watchers are buying the narrative. Williams is a starter in many re-draft leagues as QB13 on Sunday and for the season thus far -- and doing it in a new offense. 

We forget he endured a disaster in 2024 -- a disaster that none of his rookie peers would have handled any better, much less survived it.

Caleb Williams vs. Baltimore: Better than Characterized

Caleb Williams' performance against the Ravens is much like what we've seen all year -- better than the naysayers want you to believe. Even if you were to foolishly reject the idea that 2025 is essentially his rookie year because he didn't have a legitimate system last year, Williams doesn't need this argument to validate the skills on display. 

Let's begin with the game script, because there are scenarios from the contest that are outside Caleb Williams' control. He can't control the fact that the Bears' defense was playing this game without four cornerbacks -- all four either starters or frequent on-field contributors. 

Even a journeyman backup like Tyler Huntley will have an advantage over four defensive backs off the bench who lack experience working together. Baltimore had Caleb Williams and the Bears' offense in chase mode for most of the contest. 

Still, Caleb Williams was a big reason the Bears remained in this game. 

Pinpoint Accuracy with Routes Breaking Across the Field

One of the common criticisms the public has made of Williams came from Ben Johnson, who noted that he wanted to see more pinpoint-accurate targets for routes breaking across the field. 

Two weeks after this statement, most of Caleb Williams' throws in these situations were pinpoint. 

Producing Against the Blitz

The Ravens dialed up blitzes with great success on Sunday -- if you define success as breaching the pocket and getting pressure on the quarterback. If you define it by sacks and bad throws, think again. Baltimore sacked Caleb Williams once despite a myriad of pressure packages that breached Chicago's offensive line. 

While red-zone sacks get fans upset because they've heard repeatedly that these are on the quarterback and a bad sign about the player's processing skills, not all red-zone sacks are equal. Mike Green's sack of Caleb Williams didn't involve Williams taking too much time or not seeing an open receiver. 

Williams saw his first two options covered quickly enough to begin moving from the pocket just as Green tripped him up with a diving effort. It was a quick sack, and not in a situation where you'd expect a player like Caleb Williams, Justin Herbert, Jalen Hurts, Drake Maye, Bo Nix, Jayden Daniels, or any mobile passer to throw the ball away that early in the play. 

If you're going to hold him to a standard of his peers, you're not going to nitpick this sack. 

Beyond this play, Caleb Williams handled pressure like a franchise passer. He threw the ball away when he exhausted options in a timely manner or there were no options available. 

Caleb Williams also found check-downs when available, coming off early reads seamlessly. 

While I characterized this screen as a Ben Johnson dial-up to counter the blitz, it's likely Caleb Williams checked into this play when he read signs of press pre-snap. 

Check-downs, throwaways, and changing plays at the line are all things you want to see from a veteran quarterback. Caleb Williams did it all. 

The media criticized his lack of footwork last year. They levied it on Williams despite Shane Waldron's offense having too many plays in which they didn't prescribe specific drops. This is a big reason why Cam Ward struggled in Brian Callahan's offense, and Callahan is no longer there. 

This year, Caleb Williams has detailed drops that set the structure for reads, pocket movement, and when to get rid of the ball. It's all there, but if you listen to the public, he's simply running around off-structure winging the ball without care and generating the occasional "wow" play but not delivering enough of the mundane successes. 

None of these plays above were "wow" moments. They're "supposed to" plays for franchise starters. 

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Caleb Williams gut check Matt Waldman fantasy football NFL 2025 Chicago Bears QBs Rome Odunze D.J. Moore Week 9
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