Caleb Williams became the first Chicago Bears player to ever grace the English version of the Madden cover. That it’s a quarterback must be utterly surreal for fans after decades of ineptitude at the position. Hype is already building for the upcoming release, and both covers look great. Like any celebrity athlete, Williams has gone on a media tour to help promote the game. One exercise he participated in was building the perfect NFL quarterback. He was given nine categories and asked which QB is the best ever at that specific trait.
The first five were pretty standard.
- IQ: Tom Brady
- Speed: Michael Vick or Lamar Jackson
- Size: Ben Roethlisberger
- Arm talent: Aaron Rodgers
- Juking: Lamar Jackson
All more than acceptable answers. Williams has long said that Brady and Rodgers were his idols growing up. Vick and Jackson are the unquestioned kings of mobile quarterbacks. Here is where it gets interesting. Four other categories were mentioned. Williams had the same answer for all four.
- Mobility: Himself
- Top speed: Himself
- Toughness: Himself
- Vision: Himself
Arrogant? Maybe. Caleb Williams may not be totally insane, though.
Let’s start with mobility. It isn’t a secret that Williams can run. He won a Heisman trophy at USC thanks in large part to his ability to keep plays alive. He’s been doing that for two years in Chicago, but last season was a massive step up in effectiveness. According to advanced metrics, he was 3rd in the NFL in pressure-to-sack rate and 1st in total sacks avoided. In other words, getting him on the ground was a nightmare for opposing defenses. So Williams has a strong argument in this category.
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He was also correct about speed. His 21.01 mph against San Francisco was the fastest by any quarterback in the NFL last season. That is the same as Vick achieved during his peak in Atlanta. Toughness? That one is difficult to measure. Williams’ best argument is that he took 68 sacks as a rookie in 2024, along with dozens of additional hits, and didn’t miss a single game. So the Bears quarterback at least has a viable argument in three of those cases. The challenging one is vision.
Williams doesn’t have a case here.
Vision constitutes a quarterback who can see the entire field, recognize where the open man is or will be, and deliver the ball on time and on target. This is where Caleb Williams’ case falls apart. One stat that tends to highlight which quarterbacks have good vision is TTT, or Time To Throw. That measures the time between the snap of the ball and the quarterback’s throw. The lower the number, the greater the processing speed. Tom Brady, often considered the gold standard, had a career average of around 2.45-2.5 seconds.
According to Next Gen Stats, Williams clocked in at 3.17 seconds in 2025, which was actually better than his rookie season but still the highest in the NFL. He’d like people to think his decision to hold the ball so often comes from a search for big plays. In reality, it’s a mix of that and sometimes questionable vision. If there is one category he had no leg to stand on, it’s that one. Changing that narrative remains an ongoing challenge. We’ll see if he can knock it down further in 2026.
