If there is one thing we’ve learned about quarterback Caleb Williams since he joined the Chicago Bears, it is that he is obsessed with winning. He wants to go down as one of the greats. Williams understands that the fastest way to do that is by winning championships. He can’t do it alone. As ridiculously talented as the young quarterback is, football is a team sport. That means it falls on his shoulders to be the leader in the locker room and on the field. It is why you have seen more and more moments of Williams using his voice to get teammates pointed in the right direction.
What people don’t know is that, despite all the rumors about his interests outside of football, the quarterback is obsessed with finding anything that might give his team an advantage, mentally or physically. That includes looking into other sports for ideas. One he found most interesting came from a 2010 UC Berkeley study on how high-fives, fist bumps, huddles, and congratulations for teammates in the NBA affected team success. It turned out to have a massive impact. Few utilized this hidden benefit more than Hall of Fame point guard Tony Parker and the San Antonio Spurs.
Williams took that data and has since applied it in the locker room, demanding that teammates celebrate each other’s scores whenever they occur.
Caleb Williams reached into another sport for guidance.
“One: It’s really freaking hard to score. So let’s go celebrate when we do it. Two: it shows a sense of love and care for your teammates because you didn’t get in the end zone. You weren’t the one getting in the end zone, so you’ve got to go down there and celebrate and have fun and dance and do all these things and come back to the sideline, focus up, and get ready to go do it again.
So, it’s something like the Spurs, with Tony Parker, a couple years ago. So, it’s like if it was just this stat of like they go around and they slap hands more than anybody and it’s those small things, those small connections, those small moments that build up and when it when it comes down to it in those big moments, something from those moments and slapping hands and going down and celebrating with your teammates, they show up late in games late in the year and things like that. And so, it’s important. It’s really important to me and us.”
Williams isn’t alone in thinking this way.
It may sound unbelievable to many people, but one of the biggest advocates of celebrating touchdowns and big plays is none other than Bill Belichick. That’s right, the future Hall of Fame head coach and notorious cremudgeon openly told his players that they should be excited about those things. With all of the hard work they put in every single day, not celebrating your success or that of your teammates feels like a complete waste of effort. Enjoy those moments. They’re well-earned.
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Caleb Williams has reached a similar conclusion. The Bears work incredibly hard to prepare for the season. Head coach Ben Johnson has made doubly sure of that since arriving last year. What is all the blood, sweat, and pain for if you don’t enjoy the game? That is what the quarterback wants. Once everybody embraces the small moments together, they’ll strive to achieve bigger things together. This was often a problem with previous versions of the Bears. They had talent to be sure, but rarely played with that level of camaraderie.
The Bears haven’t seen this level of leadership from a QB before.
When you look back at guys like Justin Fields, Mitch Trubisky, Jay Cutler, Rex Grossman, Jim Miller, and others, none of them came across as true leaders. Sure, they used their voices to motivate the guys and weren’t afraid to call teammates out on mistakes. However, none of them seized full ownership of how those guys in the huddle were supposed to think and act. Even Jim McMahon, for all of his successful leadership qualities, never went that far. Williams is in uncharted territory, right up there with greats like Drew Brees, Tom Brady, Roger Staubach, and Bart Starr.
He feels it is his responsibility to find every way possible to get the Bears to play like champions. If forcing them to celebrate more often is one of those requirements, so be it. Not that teammates resisted that idea too much. Celebrating big plays is always a joy. The reason they don’t do it as often is that they fear they might be punished in some way. That will not happen under Williams’ watch.
