Tag: Caleb Williams

Patriots QB Drake Maye explains long-standing connection to Caleb Williams

Drake Maye and Caleb Williams go way back

New England Patriots quarterback Drake Maye has a connection with Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams.

The rookies will meet for the first time in the NFL on Sunday. However, they have a connection that predates the league and even college. Williams is viewed as a cornerstone piece for the Bears’ organization, much like Maye is for the Patriots.

Maye discussed his relationship with Williams and the Bears quarterback’s development from high school until now, via Pro Football Talk’s Michael David Smith.

“You spend a lot of time with those guys, you see them some on visits, some at the Combine,” Maye said. “With Caleb, I’ve seen him since high school. Going to the same camps, we were at Elite 11 with each other, we had some college visits together.

“We’re going through the process again. In college we were friends, I enjoyed watching him do his thing, and now we get a chance to compete. Any time you go against a rookie quarterback in the same class it’s a little extra. I’m looking forward to going out there and getting a chance to play the Bears.”

Both quarterbacks are looking to turn their franchises around, and both have shown flashes of success. Williams has thrown for 1,665 yards, nine touchdowns and five interceptions.

Maye has recorded 770 yards, six touchdowns and four interceptions on the season. Sunday’s game will be a showdown between two promising rookies and a preview of the future of the NFL.

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Several Trojans rank among top NFL players in latest statistical overview

Analyzing the best Trojans in the NFL reveals several standouts who are making a big impact on Sundays.

USC football has a lot of notable former players who have moved on to the NFL. From the No. 1 pick in the 2024 NFL draft, Caleb Williams, to the 112th pick in the 2021 NFL draft, Amon-Ra St. Brown, former Trojans are making noise at the next level, specifically on the offensive side of the ball.

Through nine weeks of the NFL season, former USC quarterbacks Caleb Williams and Sam Darnold have the 5th-most passing yards and 4th-most passing touchdowns.

Similarly, former USC wide receivers are showing out at the next level. Former Trojans wide receivers have the 4th-most receiving yards with 2,091, behind 3rd-place Alabama with 2,404 and far ahead of 5th-place Ole Miss with 1,408. That list of former USC wideouts in the NFL includes Amon-Ra St. Brown, Michael Pittman Jr., and JuJu Smith-Schuster.

While this season may not be going the way Trojans fans hoped on Saturdays, the USC alumni are certainly some of the highest performers at the next level on Sundays.

Visit our friends at Fighting Irish Wire, Buffaloes Wire, Ducks Wire, UW Huskies Wire and UCLA Wire.

D.J. Moore walking off field mid-play shows Bears really are quitting on Matt Eberflus

D.J. Moore really quit on the Bears in the middle of a play.

In case it wasn’t clear, D.J. Moore is unhappy with the Chicago Bears’ direction under offensive coordinator Shane Waldron. But it sure seems like he’s pretty frustrated with fledgling head coach Matt Eberflus, too.

How else could you possibly explain Moore seemingly quitting on a Bears’ offensive play … as it was still happening?!

A replay of an early first-quarter sequence in Sunday’s blowout loss to the Arizona Cardinals shows Moore apparently tweaking something and walking off the field to sit on the bench as Caleb Williams was still orchestrating a Chicago scramble drill. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that before from an NFL player, let alone from someone with a star reputation like Moore.

I understand Moore might have been hurt and is likely a little frustrated by the Bears’ offense this year. But I can’t excuse a player walking off the field mid-play. And none of the potential excuses really add up for me, either.

Did Moore think Williams stepped out of bounds? I don’t think so because he’s staring right at him as he spins back toward the field.

Did Moore perhaps step out of bounds and thus take himself off because he would’ve been an ineligible receiver? This is more plausible, but the margins from where Moore was standing are so minuscule that you keep playing and take the penalty after the fact, only if necessary. It’s almost like he’d be looking for an excuse to leave early.

Unless you’re seriously hurt, you play to the whistle. Always and without question.

Was Moore dialed in with Williams and his other offensive teammates?

OK, well, this is probably the one and the whole point of me writing a few hundred words about this instance. It’s the first quarter of your first game after a disastrous Hail Mary loss. Not coming prepared to play so much that you kind of just wave the white flag on a play because of a lack of engagement is unacceptable. It speaks to a rotten culture the Bears have let persist.

I already thought the Bears’ players quit on Eberflus with their generally pathetic effort on Sunday. To me, this Moore play — from one of the apparent leaders on the team — is damning evidence of that assessment.

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D.J. Moore answered question about Bears’ playcaller changes like a true politician

D.J. Moore is clearly unhappy with the Bears’ coaches.

A once-promising season for the 2024 Chicago Bears is now in a full-on tailspin. After Sunday’s pathetic effort against the Arizona Cardinals in a blowout loss, it seems pretty apparent that Bears players have begun quitting on milquetoast head coach Matt Eberflus.

One of the biggest reasons for the Bears’ struggles lately — and really, all season — has been an inept offense with no rhyme or reason. Offensive coordinator Shane Waldron (who also calls the plays) has overseen an attack that has scored seven total first-quarter points all season. Over the last two weeks alone, the Bears’ offense somehow made the Washington Commanders’ and Cardinals’ awful defenses look like stout juggernauts.

But if you ask receiver D.J. Moore about whether someone else should call the plays for the Bears’ offense moving forward — as Chicago radio station 670 The Score did on Monday morning — he thinks it won’t happen.

Hey, wait a minute. The question was about whether they should, not whether they will. Oh. Got it:

D.J. Moore knows exactly what he’s doing when he doesn’t really address the question there. He’s subtly inserting his opinion that Waldron hasn’t been good enough by explaining why he won’t be replaced without actually saying it in certain terms. Spoken like a true politician.

Beyond the Bears’ offense’s general issues, it’s not hard to see why Moore would be frustrated. As a genuine No. 1 receiver, Chicago hasn’t found a way to involve its best playmaker consistently and productively all season. A year after catching nearly 100 passes for over 1,300 yards, Moore is on pace for less than 800 yards in 2024 while averaging just over 10 yards a catch.

(Note: The same principle applies to talented tight end Cole Kmet, who weirdly has just one target over the last two weeks after being on a Pro Bowl-caliber pace through the Bears’ first six games.)

You tell me what’s more likely. Did a 27-year-old elite receiver like Moore suddenly fall off a cliff, or does his new offensive coordinator have no idea how to utilize him?

Hmm, a real tough one here.

It’s no wonder Moore didn’t endorse Waldron and instead said why the Bears won’t move any chairs on their ship deck around. He’s exasperated with his role and how his unit is playing, and I can’t blame him.

Matt Eberflus’ coaching seat is red hot after Bears’ pathetic effort vs. Cardinals

The Bears openly quitting on Matt Eberflus shows it’s time to fire him.

The best time for the Chicago Bears to fire head coach Matt Eberflus was in January 2024, after he plodded his way to a middling 7-10 record as the organization set itself up to draft Caleb Williams in April. The next best time to fire Matt Eberflus is … right now after the Bears clearly quit on the overmatched coach in an embarrassing 29-9 loss against the Arizona Cardinals because he almost always throws them under the bus in public for his mistakes.

The worst and most predictable time to fire Eberflus will be on Monday, January 6, 2025, when the Bears let this glorified football doofus get another nine games to recklessly damage Williams’ future because the NFL’s charter franchise values not firing coaches midseason as some perverse badge of pride.

If the Bears have any self-respect left and want the Williams era to be bright, competitive, and filled with glorious success in winter after winter, it’s time to swallow the bitter pill and send Eberflus packing.

Chicago leadership cannot let a man who thinks like this (note: Williams was under siege behind an awful offensive line all game in Arizona) to continue coaching their team:

They’ll deny it in public with their words, but Bears players made their opinion on the Eberflus matter very clear with their actions after a devastating Hail Mary loss last weekend. By turning in a pitiful effort from top to bottom against the Cardinals, the Bears showed they were done with Eberflus offering empty, vapid platitudes from the jump.

Where do I even begin? (Takes a deep breath.)

The Bears committed not one but two penalties on Arizona field goal attempts, one of which gifted the Cardinals a fresh set of downs and led to a touchdown. Nothing is more undisciplined in football than special teams penalties that give the opposition a clean slate. The Bears did it twice. Strike one. For a coach whose calling card is effort and defense, Arizona’s offense ran through the Bears like melted butter to the tune of 213 team rushing yards. The Bears, even without Pro Bowl defensive end Montez Sweat, have roughly a gajillion dollars and high-end draft picks invested in their defense.

So, you tell me if that rushing defense is effort or talent? Strike two.

Don’t worry. It gets worse. It just keeps going.

Entering their matchup, the Cardinals had one of the NFL’s worst defenses. (Just like the Washington Commanders last week.) You’d never know it while watching the Bears and Williams fail to establish any discernible rhythm for three hours. The game plan, in this regard, was even worse. Cole Kmet went from a Pro Bowl-caliber tight end dominating the middle of the field a few weeks ago to one total target in his last two games. Meanwhile, the ghost of Keenan Allen is still tracking down aimless deep passes somewhere that he can’t reach anymore on another unfathomable target in his direction. If not for his ankle injury, I’d also estimate that Williams was still waiting for any Bears receiver, any at all, to come back to the ball on scramble drills he’s forced to induce behind his patchwork offensive line. Strike three.

If this general malaise wasn’t enough, the Bears gave up the longest end-of-half touchdown run this millennium. Strike … four?

Dearest readers, that sort of thing doesn’t happen unless a team stops playing:

In mid-October, this Bears season had potential. Chicago looked like a dark horse NFC contender. Williams was a world-beater, and as a rookie, no less. An elite defense laden with talent was firing on all cylinders. Then Eberflus botched a Hail Mary defensive strategy in the worst way possible before taking zero sincere accountability for his failure in a fashion that incensed his locker room.

His players responded in kind: they “quiet quit” and threatened to tank all of the good vibes of a once-promising season now being taken out to pasture.

As my friend Christian D’Andrea puts it, the parallels to ex-Bears coach Matt Nagy once losing his mind over the “Double Doink” are too much to ignore:

The cold comfort for Chicago is every loss takes them closer to the end of the Eberflus era, closing the door on a head coach who never quite seemed to grasp the gravity his job entailed. Nagy had the Double Doink. Eberflus had the world’s worst Hail Mary defense. Barring an unlikely turnaround, that will be his legacy.

The Bears cannot pretend to care about winning if they let Eberflus continue this charade any longer. The crux of the matter is he likely ended any positive potential for his head-coaching career the moment Noah Brown caught that touchdown in Washington, D.C.

For the sake of any part of Chicago’s still-good roster, it’s time to send Eberflus to the unemployment line.

Former USC QB offers perspective on Trojans’ tough season

Former USC quarterback Max Browne talks about the process the Trojans need to follow in order to restore the toughness they have lost.

It is no secret that USC’s 2024 season under Lincoln Riley has not gone according to plan. After another frustrating loss on Saturday, the Trojans now sit at 4-5 and need to win two of their final three games just to make a bowl game.

It feels like a decade ago that USC won 11 games in Lincoln Riley’s 2022 debut season. Following the loss, former USC quarterback Max Browne argued that in hindsight, the 2022 success is largely responsible for USC’s 2024 failures.

“In hindsight, the 2022 season was the worst thing for USC,” Browne said in a tweet following the game.

“Gave the program the illusion the right foundation was being built in Year 1 reaching the Cotton Bowl. Instead, it was because of a super human QB and set an ‘all star’ transfer portal identity into the team.

“Most programs in Year 1 take their lumps, but use it to establish a foundation of grit, physicality, and toughness.

“If you don’t establish that mentality in Year 1, it’s extremely difficult to change course because if you all the sudden become a hardass in Year 2, you run the risk of losing your locker room as it comes across inauthentic.”

The “super human QB” that Browne is referring to is, of course, Caleb Williams. USC’s 2022 success was largely based around Williams being Superman on the football field and constantly bailing out his team. Because USC was winning with Williams’ heroics at the time, however, they failed to establish an identity of toughness and physicality.

Now, with Williams no longer around to erase USC’s mistakes, the team’s lack of toughness is being exposed. Despite being in the third year of the Lincoln Riley era, it feels like the Trojans are in the first year of a rebuild.

When you are paying your head coach as much as USC is paying Riley, that simply is not acceptable.

Charles Davis openly questioned the Bears for letting Caleb Williams get hurt in a 20-point loss

Matt Eberflus deserves to get fired for letting Caleb Williams get hurt alone.

There was only one way the Chicago Bears’ pitiful effort in a 29-9 loss to the Arizona Cardinals could get worse. No, I’m not talking about demotivational speeches from head coach Matt Eberflus. It’s about Caleb Williams getting hurt in any possible manner.

And unsurprisingly, even in a dangerous game like football, the Bears did it to themselves.

With Chicago playing out the string of its blowout defeat, the Bears weirdly kept Caleb Williams in. Even worse, they kept having him throw passes, exposing him to potential injury in a game the Bears had already clearly lost. Williams would get hurt, and he held his leg before slowly limping off the field.

This was a decision that CBS’s color commentator Charles Davis openly criticized on the broadcast:

I understand the idea of letting Williams get reps and development time, even when the outcome is already set in stone. He needs that just like any other young quarterback. But Williams was under siege basically all game. He got sacked six times. There’s minimal benefit to him throwing a few more passes behind a terrible offensive line instead of living to fight another day.

If Williams is seriously hurt — you know, the only long-term hope this franchise has right now — Eberflus and his coaches may have just cemented their fate as people who should probably be fired. And soon.

UPDATE: Williams said he actually tweaked his ankle, then had it “gator-rolled” at the end of the game. He appears to be OK.

Bo Nix was the NFL’s best rookie quarterback in October

Bo Nix ranked 1st in passing yards, 1st in passing TDs, 1st in TD-to-INT ratio and 1st in rushing TDs among rookie quarterbacks in October.

After a shaky start, Denver Broncos rookie quarterback Bo Nix is heating up.

Nix threw no touchdown passes and four interceptions through his first two games in the NFL in September. Since then, he has totaled eight touchdown passes and one interception in his last six games.

Nix was the NFL’s best rookie quarterback in October, posting better numbers than No. 1 overall draft pick Caleb Williams and No. 2 overall pick Jayden Daniels.

Nix, the No. 12 overall pick in April, currently leads all NFL rookies with 12 total touchdowns (eight passing and four rushing), via Aric DiLalla of the team’s official website.

This is how Nix stacked up among rookie quarterbacks in October, via CBS Sports:

Stat Total Rank
Passing TDs 7 1st
Pass TDs/INTs 7/1 1st
Passing Yards 870 1st
Rushing TDs 2 1st
Wins 3 1st-T

That’s a pretty impressive month for Denver’s rookie quarterback.

Nix broke the team’s franchise record for the most wins by a rookie quarterback with his fifth victory on Sunday. Nix also became the first quarterback in Broncos history to throw for three touchdowns, rush for a touchdown and not throw an interception in a single game.

Nix can obviously still improve, but he’s trending in the right direction. The 24-year-old QB seems to be a perfect fit for coach Sean Payton’s offense.

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Caleb Williams was visibly frustrated with the Bears’ defensive approach before Commanders Hail Mary

Caleb Williams was infuriated by the Bears’ stunning choke job.

It’s the morning after the Washington Commanders’ shocking Hail Mary win, and the Chicago Bears sure seem like they’re all out of sorts.

Where head coach Matt Eberflus blamed Bears players for their “execution” before Dan Quinn directly contradicted his late-game coaching approach, superstar cornerback Jaylon Johnson refused to blame anyone for the loss.

But the main Bears person in focus here should be No. 1 pick quarterback Caleb Williams.

While Williams also did not scapegoat anyone in his postgame press conference, two separate videos show that the bright young quarterback was visibly frustrated with how the Bears approached Washington’s final Hail Mary possession.

In the first, you can see Williams near the top of the screen trying to get any of the Bears’ defenders on the field to come up and defend a key quick out to Terry McLaurin. In fact, it’s literally what Williams motions to when the CBS camera finally centers on him.

Naturally, no one listened:

The second video was just as telling.

With CBS’s camera focused on Williams’ reaction while watching Jayden Daniels throw and complete the Hail Mary, the Bears quarterback romps off the field in disgust, seemingly going off on a tirade about someone’s mistake (it could’ve also been the missed holding calls).

Some might say that, with his overall terrible game, Williams hasn’t earned the right to be this openly incensed. But, again, it’s worth noting that he didn’t actually blast anyone in public, and even with a poor three quarters of play to start, Williams engineered not one but two touchdown-worthy possessions on the road against a quality team in the final moments.

Williams is the leader and emotional pulse of the Bears, who gutted out a tough almost-win despite not bringing their A-game. Anyone would be just as upset by how Chicago blew it if they were in his shoes.

Matt Eberflus’ inexcusable late-game coaching for Bears set up the Commanders’ Hail Mary

Matt Eberflus put on a coaching disasterclass to set up the Commanders’ Hail Mary win.

With how discombobulated they played, the Chicago Bears had no business beating the Washington Commanders on Sunday. Then, led by Caleb Williams, they scored an unanswered 15 points and held a 15-12 lead with just 23 seconds left. In almost every situation, it should’ve been a surefire victory from then on.

Then Chicago head Matt Eberflus’ decision-making reared its ugly head to set up Jayden Daniels’ heroic, game-winning Hail Mary. (Wait, was there a hold?)

First, Eberflus’ mandate around a prevent defense literally gifted Washington a free 13 yards to get closer for a reasonable deep shot. (Why would you ever let them get closer for free?) Then, rather than call any of his three timeouts to organize the Chicago defense and get everyone set up in an optimal way, Eberflus let things lie, setting up ideal circumstances for Daniels to have nearly 13 seconds of time before launching his desperate, game-winning throw.

This was especially problematic because Eberflus had linebacker T.J. Edwards lined up as a quarterback spy (ON A HAIL MARY) while also keeping some of his shorter defenders on the field. The Bears would then only rush three players. That’s not abnormal for a Hail Mary. What is abnormal is that Montez Sweat — Chicago’s best pass-rusher by far — was not on the field. Oh, and the Bears’ players on the field really let someone get behind them on a last-ditch play.

Basically, if Eberflus had used ANY of his timeouts, he would’ve likely prevented the perfect conditions for a Hail Mary.

Eberflus’ reaction on the sideline after the fact almost understates his completely inept failure to prepare his team with the game on the line:

The Bears had no business winning this game. But a heroic effort from their defense and a gutsy finish by their quarterback had them in position to steal it. Then Eberflus’ late-game coaching decisions threw it all away.

Eberflus is now 3-17 on the road in his Bears coaching career. He just might not be built for this.