Caleb Williams trying to put hyped homecoming out of mind as Bears hunt another win

Caleb Williams left Washington, D.C. for Oklahoma, then Southern California, then the Chicago Bears. In the five years since, he’s returned to the “DMV” (D.C., Maryland, Virginia) area just a time or two, Williams said this week.

That will make the rookie quarterback’s trip home Sunday as the Bears face the Washington Commanders all the more special, he said. He’s already used up the entirety of his ticket allotment and was figuring out how to fill the outstanding requests.

“Going to be great. Going to be fun,” Williams said Wednesday. “Coming out with a win is most important.”

The game is a confluence of storylines for Williams: a homecoming, a reunion and a faceoff between the 2024 draft’s top two picks that will likely have to wait until another day.

The homecoming

Williams was born in Maryland and lived the early parts of his life in the towns of Bowie and Upper Marlboro. He moved to D.C. for high school at Gonzaga and lived on the same block as the school in the city’s northeast neighborhood.

Williams called the area one of the best places to grow up.

“You have all different kinds of diversity, whether it’s people and where they’re from, whether it’s some of the schools and things like that, whether it’s food, and so much more,” the 2022 Heisman Trophy winner said.

The nearby monuments and access to United States history appealed to Williams during his youth.

“Growing up in the area provides a lot of information, provides a lot of growth,” he said. “I think it did that for me.”

Williams led Gonzaga to the 2018 Washington Catholic Athletic Conference championship by throwing a game-winning Hail Mary as the clock expired in the title game. Although his senior season was lost due to the COVID-19 pandemic, he emerged as the top-ranked dual-threat quarterback in his class and joined Lincoln Riley at Oklahoma before following him to more success at USC.

Asked if he put much thought into the homecoming aspect of the game against Washington, Williams replied: "No. My job is to go win games on Thursdays, Sundays and Mondays. So, that's it."

The reunion

As the Commanders tumbled under former coach Ron Rivera on the way to a 4-13 mark in 2023, the possibility of Williams returning to the DMV never became viable. The Carolina Panthers had the league’s worst record and, in accordance with the terms of their trade with the Bears the previous offseason, their eventual No. 1 pick would belong to Chicago.

As the formality of Williams being the No. 1 pick played out before the draft, Bears head coach Matt Eberflus interviewed prospective offensive coordinators. One candidate? Kliff Kingsbury, the former Texas Tech and Arizona Cardinals head coach who spent 2023 on USC’s coaching staff.

“We kept in touch. Didn’t think much of it,” Williams said of that period of time. “Because at that time I didn’t know I was going to be a Bear for sure. Just knew that it was an option for me, option for him.”

Eberflus brought in Shane Waldron to run the offense.

Kingsbury wound up as Dan Quinn’s offensive coordinator with the Commanders. On Thursday, he declined to discuss his interview experience with the Bears after Eberflus said “it was very informative to both parties.”

"Freaky talent,” Kingsbury said of Williams. “Watching the stuff he'd do in practice and in the games, his ability, his feel – really, really special. He's going to be one of the top guys in the league for a lot of years, so that was cool to get to spend time with him last year."

The rules of Kingsbury’s official title – senior offensive analyst – prevented him from doing on-field work with the Trojans. Williams fired off questions to Kingsbury about being a pro quarterback knowing the coach had molded Patrick Mahomes at Texas Tech and Kyler Murray with the Cardinals. Essentially, preparing Williams for the NFL was a significant part of Kingsbury’s job responsibilities.

“I think it’s helped me for these moments now,” Williams said.

Quinn said the Commanders did their due diligence on Williams ahead of the draft to account for the miniscule chance the Bears didn’t take him first. Having Kingsbury as part of that evaluation provided the team with valuable first-hand insight.

“(Williams has) got a great report about him from everywhere he'd been, from being here locally, to Oklahoma, to (U)SC,” Quinn said. “It traveled with him. The work ethic, the play-making ability. It was pretty consistent wherever he went. And I've probably had a sense he would've done fantastic just about anywhere.”

The way Williams competed and could make off-platform throws will always stand out to Kingsbury.

"He would want the ball in his hands in the biggest moments – almost to a fault sometimes,” Kingsbury said, “where he'd kind of pass up maybe an easy checkdown and be like, 'Hey, I can make a bigger play' or 'I'm going to get out and do this' because he's that big of a competitor. And it reminded me of the guy I had at Texas Tech because (he did) some of the same stuff early on in his career."

The (unlikely) faceoff

With Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels seemingly likely to miss the game with a rib injury, the showdown between the top two picks in the 2024 draft will have to come another time. The No. 2 pick in the draft returned to practice Friday.

Daniels’ hot start to his pro career gave him Rookie of the Month honors for September.

“It’s been pretty cool watching his progress from obviously Arizona State to LSU to now in the pros balling out,” Williams said of his counterpart. “He’s been playing great over there with Kliff and all the guys they have over there. Like I said, happy for him – and glad to see him balling out.”

Obviously, Williams wants Daniels to play that day. But it’s not like Daniels is attempting to sack him or pick off one of his passes.

“I’m not reliant off of that matchup,” Williams said.

While Daniels had the meteoric beginning of his career, Williams’ beginnings were more sluggish. But he improved his completion percentage by nearly 15 points in Weeks 4-6 compared to the first three games of the year and his EPA (expected points added) per dropback jumped from -0.27 (28th in the NFL) to 0.33 (third). His EPA against the blitz also improved from 29th to seventh.

Commanders defensive coordinator Joe Whitt Jr. noted Williams’ ability to throw the ball from multiple arm angles and his movement in and around the pocket. He added that the offensive concepts changed following the second or third game of the Bears’ season.

Williams said he wants to be better at throwing the deep ball and have the offense put up more points in the first quarter.

Williams credited the adjustments to multiple meetings between Bears offensive players and Waldron to discuss what worked and what didn’t. What Williams liked and what he thought should not be called. What “flow” in the play calling and execution should look like.

“I think he's learned to do a really good job in the noise to work through those things,” Eberflus said. “Also just the basic operation of good quarterbacking. You can see that the way he's executed the last few weeks.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Caleb Williams trying to put Washington homecoming out of mind