Bears QB Caleb Williams is once again the talk of the NFL, but he's controlling the conversation now

In the roaring sea of fans at Lumen Field on Monday night before the Bears’ game against the Seahawks, quarterback Caleb Williams focused in on a single speck in the crowd.

As he huddled briefly with teammates during pre-game warmups, he saw a Seattle fan staring directly at him with a white posterboard with black letters written in marker that read, “CALEB WILLIAMS FAKES INJURIES – PAINTS HIS NAILS PINK.” It stuck with Williams well after he carved up the Seahawks for the Bears’ most impressive win of his career, and he posted it on Instagram.

Even as Williams is riding higher than ever and has been the talk of every NFL show this week, he’s still searching for fuel.

“Those are fun,” he said Wednesday. “Sometimes when you go into games, you just need one thing. That was maybe it.”

Turns out making a nasty sign for Williams is counterproductive. He’s unfazed by the whiplash of his popularity, seeming to find usefulness in best and worst of it.

He brimmed with confidence going into the season after taking the cover of the new Madden game, then burned inside when a wave of mockery crashed on him after hurting his hamstring in Week 2 and leaving the field in tears. The positive and negative drive him equally.

He’s at a new high point now, though, after surging into the MVP race. He’s been hot the last three games, looking like a championship-level quarterback, and — like all things with Williams — the nation has noticed.

The lasting memory from Seattle wasn’t what he did on the field, though he was sharp in completing 24 of 34 passes for 247 yards and a touchdown for a 101.0 passer rating. Instead, it was his post-game appearance on SportsCenter with Scott Van Pelt.

With a throng of Bears fans sticking around to watch, Williams could barely talk over the constant chant of “M-V-P,” which predictably veered off into “Green Bay sucks” and various screams of, “We love you,” while he tried to answer Van Pelt’s questions.

That was only the beginning this week. Williams has always been front and center locally, but since Monday it’s been impossible to turn on any sports show on TV and avoid his face.

It’s no wonder that NBC opted to hold on to the Bears’ upcoming home game against the Buccaneers for “Sunday Night Football” rather than flex it out, even as the Bucs are 3-5 and irrelevant.

Anything with Williams is relevant. You bring the cameras, he’ll bring the star power. America will be glued to the game just to see him.

That’s what the Bears always hoped would happen when they drafted him No. 1 overall in 2024. They believed they were getting a quarterback who not only had the talent to bury their woeful history at the position, but be the face of the team as a new Chicago sports icon and lead them out of obscurity.

It took time, more than the Bears initially thought, and the volatility of Williams’ fame tracked with his performance. He lost the spotlight after the draft when No. 2 pick Jayden Daniels raced ahead of him, then he reasserted himself with an artful display in London to beat the Jaguars. Then the season fell apart, and Williams was back to seeing his body language and facial expressions under a microscope.

It took a while last season, too, as coach Ben Johnson drove him so hard that Williams later playfully described the early part of their relationship as fragile. Williams made amazing plays, many with the game on the line, but struggled in the basics — a combination that made him perfect debate material for talk shows.

“People are going to say what they have to say; I can’t please everybody,” Williams said. “That’s not my job. My job is to go win."

The last three weeks, though, he has taken control of the conversation.

Williams is fifth in the NFL in passer rating (104.6), second in completion percentage (70.9) and 11th in yards per game (253.4) — all of which are a leap from where he was last season.

There is no other side of the argument when he’s playing like this. Even those who dislike him for superficial reasons must concede he’s turning into an elite quarterback.

“If you like it or don’t like it,” he said, “you’ve got to deal with it.”

The improvement has pushed him to the peak of his popularity thus far, but it’s still rising.