Caleb Williams, the Chicago Bears’ first-round choice, has become a local celebrity in the two weeks since his selection. He accompanied a group of team veterans to a Cubs game at Wrigley Field and sat courtside with wide receivers Keenan Allen and Rome Odunze at a Sky game.
He even was photographed pushing a shopping cart at a local Target, an image that popped up all over social media and made him laugh because of the funny way he was walking. Williams said he was procuring “all the small things that I needed” as he settles into his new life in the Chicago area.
Settling in with the Bears at Halas Hall, of course, has been Williams’ biggest task, and that ramped up Friday with the first practice of a two-day rookie minicamp in Lake Forest. During the 1 1/2-hour session, Williams threw to rookie wide receivers, including No. 9 pick Rome Odunze, and ran the offense in drills along with undrafted rookie quarterback Austin Reed. Rookie punter Tory Taylor and defensive lineman Austin Booker were the other draft picks who practiced, while offensive lineman Kiran Amegadjie, the third-round pick out of Yale, will sit out the offseason program as he recovers from a quad injury that ended his 2023 season. “Right now I feel pretty good,” Williams said before the session. “We’re going to have a few mess-ups probably. I’m working to eliminate those as fast as possible. But you need those things to grow and progress throughout the years.”
Williams had a head start on his adjustment to his new home. The former USC quarterback and the Bears had the unique benefit of knowing they were going to be paired together for weeks if not months before the draft. Bears coaches gave Williams a lot of notes about the offense during his top-30 visit to Halas Hall in April. Since then, Williams has been working on some aspects of the offense, including cadences and drops, to get ahead before he arrived at minicamp. Bears coach Matt Eberflus called Williams’ private quarterbacks coach Will Hewlett “awesome” as he helped Williams with the new information.
