Rich: Bears’ Caleb Williams is a Top 5 Quarterback in the NFL

Rich went big on Caleb Williams the morning after Thursday Night Football, and he knew exactly what he was saying.

"You can make the case Caleb Williams is the best quarterback the Chicago Bears have had since Jim McMahon, if not Sid Luckman," Rich said. "That's how good he's playing right now."

He was careful with the McMahon comparison. That one is about championship-quality football. In terms of raw ability, Rich said Williams is "way more physically talented" than the punky QB.

The bigger claim came next. "If he stays healthy, he's a top five quarterback in the National Football League," Rich said. "That's what he's becoming."

Everything from USC, plus the neck up

Rich credited Ben Johnson for what Williams has been turned into. "It's everything that you saw at USC now on a pro football field, but even better because he's playing what? Neck up," he said. "And he is impossible to get down on the ground."

That was his favorite tell from the win over New England. When the Patriots did manage to bring Williams down, "it's almost shocking when the play's over because he didn't escape and he didn't extend it."

The numbers backed it up. Williams went 22 of 33 for 308 yards and two touchdowns, his second straight 300-yard game, and both came in wins. Luther Burden had four catches for 130 yards, which Rich calculated at 32 and a half yards per catch.

For a franchise like Chicago, Rich said, that kind of chunk play from quarterback to receiver "used to be like a comet in the sky." He threw out David Terrell as the old reference point, admitting he was going with a Michigan guy.

Rome Odunze, drafted in the same first round as Williams, made two spectacular catches to help ice the game. Colston Loveland caught another touchdown. D'Andre Swift found the end zone too, even though the Patriots held the Bears to 116 rushing yards. And Rich pointed out the offense isn't even at full strength yet, which makes 30 points on a Patriots defense that is "no joke" even more impressive.

Not Cutler, not Trubisky

Rich acknowledged he "might have shot a little high," but stood on the comparison. "We didn't see this from Cutler," he said. Mitchell Trubisky was the last Bears quarterback with back-to-back 300-yard games before Thursday, but Rich said you never got the sense the Bears had nailed that pick, "even when Matt Nagy and he double-doinked into the playoffs."

Williams, for his part, embraced the prime-time stage after the game. "These nights are awesome," he said. "You play versus another good team in a primetime game on a short week. These games are awesome cause you get to see who you are as a team. We're a smashmouth football team, innovative team. And then when things don't go our way, when the water's rocky, we stay steady."

Rich added one more number: when not under pressure, Williams is completing 88 percent of his passes this season, the highest mark through a season's first starts since ESPN began tracking the pressure stat in 2023. The expectation, he said, is that defenses will start blitzing him a lot more. The problem for them is that blitzing leaves Burden running free for 30 or 40 yards, and the Bears have a coach who knows how to scheme it up.

One small note for Caleb

Rich did have one criticism, and only one. On the Prime Video postgame show, Williams gave Richard Sherman grief for not putting the Bears in his top five, adding, "I see everything." Rich said Williams is very online and very aware, to the point of declining to discuss his hamstring. His advice: "a little less online."

Then he spoke directly to him anyway. "Caleb, what's up? I think you're balling out. Killing it. Absolutely killing it."

The road to a division title

Rich believes the Bears can absolutely win the NFC North, though they are tied with the Vikings at five wins and will have to win in Minnesota to avoid a sweep. He cited an ESPN stat that the Bears are 3-0 in starts Williams finishes, with the one he didn't finish being the loss to Minnesota.

The schedule ahead includes a trip to Seattle, the matchup Rich thought should have opened the season: the NFC Championship Game that would have happened had the Rams not prevailed on that chilly Chicago night. Then Todd Bowles brings the Buccaneers and all that blitzing to Chicago on a Sunday night in Week 9. After a Week 10 bye comes New Orleans at home, a game Rich figures Dennis Allen will very much want.

The defense is doing its part, too. The Bears sacked Drake Maye twice and have multiple sacks in all seven games, tied for the second-longest such run to open a season over the last 50 years.

"Any concerns about what they look like with Caleb Williams when he comes back? Out the window," Rich said. "They're five and two. They are well positioned to win this division and make a run in the playoffs. That's a fact."