Once Caleb Williams emerged on the big stage as a star quarterback for USC, people began noticing the similarities he shared with the NFL’s newest final boss, Patrick Mahomes. Everybody keeps making the comparison, seeing the same unique arm talent and improvisational skills. If anybody is qualified to make such an evaluation, it is Ryan Poles. Before becoming Chicago Bears GM, he was the Kansas City Chiefs director of college scouting in 2017 when they selected Mahomes 10th overall in the draft.
It would be so easy to say that pick and its subsequent success is what drove Poles to Williams. However, the evaluation goes much deeper than that. The GM revealed to Josh Schrock of NBC Sports Chicago the important lessons he learned from that pivotal evaluation of Mahomes going into 2017. It wasn’t about his arm strength and accuracy, although both were big parts of it. They needed to know what went on between the ears of the young man. How did he handle situational football? How did he deal with disappointment?
You’ll never learn more about a player than during his darkest times.
“First, the one thing that I think about was just the way we watch tape and evaluate,” Poles said. “How can we set up the film so our eyes are on situations that match what the quarterback is going to see at the next level? Then, it’s the relationship piece in terms of making sure they fit the culture, they also have the resilience, the toughness, the mental toughness to go through those hard times, and that’s really spending a lot of time with the prospects to make sure they have those things.
“And sometimes it’s a projection. That’s why, in some of these situations, I want to see guys go through some hard times and then reflect on that or what they learned from that. I think that’s important. Then, how we set up installing some mock game plans and have that person kind of spit it back to you like later in the day for some recall. I know guys learn differently so it’s not weighted to seriously because we have tools that can kind of help them but the way we are kind of doing the visits and also the way we are watching the tape is similar.”
Ryan Poles needed to know if Williams could handle adversity.
In 2016, Mahomes went 4-8 as a starter. After a 3-1 start to the season, Texas Tech lost six of their final eight games. The QB had one of his worst performances of the season against Iowa State with two interceptions and only 50% of his passes completed. It would’ve been easy to phone in the season finale against Baylor the next week. Instead, Mahomes threw for 586 yards and six touchdowns. Rebounds like that told the Chiefs that he didn’t dwell on bad games for long. That was why Poles was thrilled when Williams had his low point of the 2023 season.
Everybody remembers it. Notre Dame intercepted him three times while dealing USC their first loss of the season. A week later, Caleb Williams played much better, guiding his team to 32 points. Sadly, the defense allowed 34. The quarterback then accounted for eight touchdowns in the next two games, showing the Irish performance had been an anomaly. It was the sort of resilience Ryan Poles probably wanted to see from a young quarterback who hadn’t seen a lot of it for most of his college career.
Subscribe to the BFR podcast and ride shotgun with Dave and Ficky as they break down Bears football like nobody else.
The lessons he learned from watching Mahomes served him well during that process. Now it appears the Bears have their guy.
@BearDownTX You may be right about USC regressing, no one would ever accuse Riley of knowing defense, and that put pressure on his offense. As for all Riley’s QBs, all of them went to teams with either excellent head coaches, offensive coordinators and coaches, and then there was Fields getting Matty Nagy and Luke Getsy (with Eberflus being the defensive version of Riley). I don’t expect miracles, and I sense that most people are tamping down expectations if Williams is drafted, and that’s fine. I know that Waldron has supporters and I’m impressed by what he’s done with Geno Smith,… Read more »
@PoochPest I believe the team regressed vs. Caleb Williams regressing. As far as the guys Riley has coached, it’s a pretty impressive group. Mayfield should have been in the Pro Bowl in 2020 (year 3 and this past year) Murray was in the Pro Bowl in both his 2nd and 3rd year in the league Hurts was in the Pro Bowl year 3 and 4. If Williams can replicate any of that, I think Bears fans will be very very happy! And by the way – NO ONE IS PATRICK MAHOMES except Patrick Mahomes And how do you know the… Read more »
@BearDownTX If you argue about Daniels only producing at that spectacular level for one year (his last year), I have to remind you that he did it primarily on his own with some guidance from his LSU coaches following the previous year. (there is a great article on what steps Daniels took to learn faster reading, processing and response times, in NoLa com) But on the other side, Williams set the world on fire with Lincoln Riley for 3 years, but actually regressed in his 3rd year. How can you be “convinced” about Williams, when Riley has produced Heisman winners… Read more »
@chasenapa9 —
I think you have something, there. And it isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
Ryan Poles has yet to declare that he has been “blown away” by Caleb Williams (after all, Williams hasn’t even take his Bears’ physical yet). So — what could go wrong?
And Poles seems to have directed Matt Eberflus to take all the “Caleb questions,” while he (Ryan Poles) continues his “mea culpa” act regarding a QB that he did little to support while he (Justin Fields) was on the roster.
Stay tuned. It should be fun.
I’m not convinced he won’t trade the 1.1