After Colin Cowherd reported Caleb Williams doesn’t want Chicago, he’s now reporting the quarterback might want Chicago.
There has been a lot of speculation over what the Chicago Bears are going to do with the first overall pick in this year’s NFL Draft. Last year, they traded the No. 1 overall pick to Carolina, which subsequently landed them the No. 1 overall pick again this year. They can trade the pick again and continue trying to build around Justin Fields, or they can draft a quarterback widely considered to be a generational prospect in Caleb Williams.
Colin Cowherd attempted to make the decision easy for the Bears during his Thursday Fox Sports Radio show when he claimed Williams doesn’t want to be drafted by Chicago.
“Caleb (Williams) and his group DO NOT want to go to Chicago” –@ColinCowherd
Talking about this right now on @ParkinsSpiegel.
🔊https://t.co/Xax1Qd4mdV
📱312.644.6767 #Bears @670TheScore pic.twitter.com/qVtcNDQfDO— Chris Tannehill (@ChrisTannehill) February 1, 2024
“There’s some concerns here that dad is a little too involved,” Cowherd said. “I do think it’s possible that Washington trades up, and Chicago allows Washington to trade up. Because Caleb and his group do not want to go to Chicago.”
It’s one thing if the Bears just made their own decision to stick with Fields over Williams. But after pulling off one of the best trades in recent NFL history by sending the No. 1 pick to Carolina in exchange for a boatload of assets that ultimately included the first overall pick this year, Caleb Williams removing himself from the equation would be a huge blow to the Bears.
But fear not Chicago, because after Cowherd dropped the bombshell report on Thursday, he opened his Friday show by walking it back.
“I got a call from the Caleb Williams camp, and they went, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Colin, we don’t want to painted as anti-Chicago.’” pic.twitter.com/4M1gHOvuHq
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) February 2, 2024
“I got a call from the Caleb Williams camp and they went, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Colin, we don’t want to painted as anti-Chicago and we don’t want to be painted as anti-Bear.’ And they made it clear to me that they said, ‘Listen, we don’t want to go to a city that doesn’t care.’ Chicago cares.. They’re big, loud, they’re passionate, they fire coaches all the time…and they did say there is a path to succeed in Chicago.”
If this update came from Williams’ camp, where did the first report that the touted prospect doesn’t want to be drafted by Chicago come from? It’s no secret that the Bears don’t exactly have a great track record with developing quarterbacks, but was this Cowherd doing some dot-connecting? Or was he actually hearing Williams might try to orchestrate a path away from Chicago before the NFL Draft?
One person who never seemed to worry about Cowherd’s initial report of Williams not being interested in Chicago is NFL insider Ian Rapoport, who not so subtly tweeted, “The Heisman trophy winner enters the process excited for whoever ends up selecting him.” And one person who is probably going to sit this one out altogether is Cowherd’s co-host Jason McIntyre, who compared Chicago to Afghanistan last year.
[The Herd]
