Breakout Potential: Don't Overreact To The Rookie Flop, Caleb Williams Can Be A QB1

Last season I had very high expectations of Caleb Williams given his station as the No. 1 overall pick in the draft and the supporting cast around him that was tailor made for him to pile up numbers. Well, some things went wrong, which we will get into, but that doesn’t completely dull my excitement for what he can produce in Year 2. While I think he has elite talent, his rookie season showed there must be growth. So while Caleb Williams might not be ready for the elite tier just yet, the breakout case is not difficult to make.

Sometimes when rookies are very hyped and don’t meet the outsized expectations, they can be graded on a much harsher curve than is appropriate. That happened to Caleb last season, who finished 2024 with 3,561 yards, 20 passing touchdowns and six interceptions. Those aren’t great fantasy QB numbers, and the path he took to those numbers created peaks and valleys. More valleys. So we weren’t happy. It’s easy to forget, though, that when Williams was right he was tearing it up. He had four games with 300+ passing yards, and in each of those games he threw for multiple touchdown passes. He threw for 250+ yards five times, and 11 of his 20 touchdowns came in those contests. If you played him in these weeks, you were a happy camper. If you played him in the nine games where he fell under 200 yards…not so much.

Williams absolutely displayed bad habits that he got away with at USC by being more talented and athletic than his opposition. He held on to the ball far too long, far too often and routinely hung an already mediocre pass-blocking unit out to dry. He limited his interceptions, but he did so at the expense of passing up high-upside passes. He also was shockingly inaccurate, posting the third-worst Bad Throw % (20.6%) in the NFL, trailing only Anthony Richardson and Bryce Young. Now, Josh Allen and C.J. Stroud were fifth and sixth in that metric, so don’t throw Caleb in the garbage just yet, but it’s not what you want to see. His 109 bad throws led the league, and Stroud came in second at 95.

So it wasn’t great, and he was definitely not as polished as you’d like to see a first overall pick be in Year 1, despite the prodigious talent. But that talent did peek through enough that he remains tantalizing. And now he should benefit from a brand new regime coming in with Ben Johnson as head coach. Johnson helmed the best offense in the NFL last season. They scored the most points (564), gained the second-most yards (6,962), and threw the fourth-most passing touchdowns (39). The Lions passing attack also came in second in yardage (4,474) despite attempting just the 16th-most passes in football, so efficiency was the name of the game for Johnson. That’s backed up by their No. 6 ranking in Pass DVOA, whereas Chicago clocked in at 26th last season. The Bears did lose WR Keenan Allen this offseason, who is taking 121 targets with him, but that could actually improve the clarity of their pass-catching roles even if it downgrades the talent a bit. The departure of Allen leaves far more work for second-year man Rome Odunze to soak up, and at his age in comparison to Allen, this is probably an upgrade as he can vastly increase his movement around the formations, and spend more time at the X receiver spot. We covered Odunze’s upside here, but he is more than ready and capable to match or exceed Allen’s output. The Bears also spent major draft capital on a new TE in Colston Loveland, who can pair with underrated Cole Kmet in two-TE sets, and on WR Luther Burden III, a YAC demon who fits well in the slot, which, once again, lets Odunze roam on the outside receiver positions where he excelled.

But there’s one more piece to the Caleb puzzle that isn’t discussed much, and that’s his prolific running. He’s not getting much designed run work like a Lamar Jackson, Jalen Hurts or Josh Allen, but he is built for rushing production nonetheless. Fun fact: his 489 rushing yards were the sixth-most by a rookie QB since 1995. Only nine rookies since 1995 have hit this mark since 1995, and they are Cam Newton, Jayden Daniels, Robert Griffin III, Kyler Murray, Russell Wilson, Josh Allen, Vince Young and Lamar Jackson. Nobody’s going to confuse Williams with guys like Newton, Lamar or RGIII, but he could very well be like prime Russell Wilson as a rusher. With around 500 yards as a baseline and some rushing TD luck (he had zero as a rookie), some of his passing shortcomings become much more palatable. And that isn’t accounting for expected improvement and greater efficiency.

Ultimately, for pocket passer QBs you want to see 4,000 passing yards and 30 TDs, with an increase in one if the other is deficient. It’s within the realm of possibility for Williams, in a much better passing environment to hit the yardage mark. He’d need a marked improvement to hit the 30 TD mark after throwing just 20 as a rookie, but again, it’s not impossible. But if Williams can get close to both of those benchmarks, and also rush for 500 yards and a few touchdowns, that’s easily a QB1 at the price of a backup on Draft Day. I don’t see why that can’t happen, and therefore I am viewing Caleb Williams as a worthy late gamble. Preferably, he’d be paired with a more stable QB who can be moved if Williams does pop, but if you do want to live dangerously, I think he’s got the upside to be your weekly QB if your goal is building tons of depth elsewhere.