I’m not ashamed to admit that my head went to some dark places when Caleb Williams crumbled to the turf on a short scramble during the fourth quarter of the Chicago Bears’ Week 2 matchup against the Minnesota Vikings. My initial instinct was to blame the notoriously poor grass at Soldier Field. From there, I cursed Mother Nature for the rain that endured all afternoon, rookie tight end Sam Roush for dropping a possible touchdown on the previous play, and my dad for getting me to emotionally invest in the Bears from a young age. It didn’t take long to start thinking about Derrick Rose, lying on the floor with a torn ACL during Game 1 of the 2012 NBA Playoffs, forever changing the trajectory of a Chicago Bulls team that felt like it could have had a championship ceiling.
Williams always seemed too good to be true for Bears fans who spent a lifetime watching quarterbacks fail spectacularly under the pressure of the job. His orchestration of a 59-point explosion in a Week 1 win almost felt like a fever dream; sure, I knew NFL teams were hypothetically capable of playing this type of buoyant, beautiful football, but not my team, not my beloved, dogshit Bears offenses that whimpered their way to the NFL’s second-fewest cumulative yards since 2002 (ahead of only the Jets, naturally).
Caleb was obviously hurting as he tried and failed to stand back up on the field. When he was carted to the locker room, towel draped over his head to conceal tears before emerging to give a triumphant thumbs up to the home crowd, I was already thinking the Bears’ season was over. I had written up too many non-contact lower body injuries that ended with disastrous consequences during my time at this website. I couldn’t stand the thought of it happening to the first Bears quarterback of my life who wasn’t just clearly good, but also capable of creating a visceral electricity no Chicago athlete since MVP Rose has been able to approach.
The Bears lost, a pathetic showing in a 9-3 defeat, but it was hard to care. The season rested on Williams’ injury diagnosis, and at this point, I was already onto bargaining as the third stage of grief. The first encouraging sign was the Bears calling it a hamstring instead of a knee or Achilles injury. From there, Terrence Tomlin of The Bigs reported Williams was walking around the locker room after the game with a “very lite” limp and no brace. A few hours later, Mike Florio was speculating that it might only be a Grade 1 strain. My guard was up until the Monday morning MRI, but I was already feeling relief that this wouldn’t be the career-changing injury I thought I just watched.
I woke up on Monday morning anxiously awaiting Caleb’s MRI. Instead, when I logged online, the only thing I saw was Caleb being turned into a meme by some of the worst people on the Internet, and by that I mean the ones who still keep a Twitter account. Every joke played on the same theme, that Williams was overreacting to a minor injury, his toughness now apparently in question. A few examples:
As Williams was becoming the biggest punchline on the internet, the jokes got the validation they needed: the MRI determined Caleb “avoided major injury,” with head coach Ben Johnson calling him “week to week.” Best of all, the team isn’t putting him on short-term IR, which would have meant he couldn’t even practice for four weeks.
In the moment, it felt like a 4-6 week injury was the absolute best case scenario. That Williams is likely to miss even less time than that is a straight up miracle. The Chicago Pope has done it again.
As relief was sweeping through Chicagoland, everyone was sending me the same text message. From my brother: “Now everyone is clowning Caleb for being soft!” The tweets didn’t lose any gas.
There’s part of me that gets it. Anyone who watched Williams go down in the moment thought they were watching a serious injury, possibly a season-ender. When the Bears’ medical staff was stabilizing his leg on the cart, I was fearing a torn Achilles that could have altered his career. At the risk of turning this column into my version of the “Leave Britney Alone” girl, if Caleb Williams is tough enough to survive getting sacked an NFL-high 68 times as a rookie during the 2024 season, he’s tough enough to survive some stupid jokes on the internet.
This isn’t exactly new for Bears fans, either. During the 2011 NFC Championship Game, the entire world clowned Jay Cutler for exiting with an injury because the team initially listed him as questionable to return. It turned out Cutler had torn his MCL, an injury no player could possibly play through. Backup Caleb Hanie checked in, and the Bears lost to the rival Green Bay Packers, who went on to win their only Super Bowl of the Aaron Rodgers era. You can clown Cutler for a lot of things — I’d start with his personal politics — but it was always dumb to question his toughness.
Williams has endured jokes his entire career, too. Football fans couldn’t handle a star quarterback who painted his nails or cried in his mother’s arms after a loss in college. Caleb has never had any desire to fit into the traditional norms of masculinity that have poisoned the brains of many fans, making them think any athlete who shows emotion is unworthy of their respect.
It’s all pretty idiotic. The same people laughing about Williams’ purported lack of toughness probably have a physical and emotional meltdown when their DoorDash order is 15 minutes late. They couldn’t handle Netflix being down for a day. None of them could stand in an NFL pocket for three seconds without soiling themselves, and I don’t think most of them would even want to be tested on how to change a tire.
The idea that fans have in their head that if I had Caleb Williams talent, I wouldn’t act like such a [redacted] is beyond delusional. If you had Caleb Williams’ talent, you would have squandered it because you’re addicted to the internet, your diet is unhealthy, and you’re just too damn scared to do what Caleb does every week.
It should also probably be mentioned that a hamstring injury is a bad injury! Luka Doncic missed the playoffs with one, OKC’s Jalen Williams basically lost all of last season trying to come back from one. Caleb suffered a left hamstring strain in 2022 during his time at USC, so he knows what it feels like. Who’s to say he was even the one who called for the cart? Better safe than sorry, especially with the first decent QB the Bears have had in 80 years.
I’ve noticed over the last five years especially that fans are too stupid to believe a player is actually injured if it’s not a torn ACL or torn Achilles — injuries that typically have a definitive timeline for a return. Soft tissue injuries like hamstrings don’t offer as much clarity, but they’re still hard as hell to play through. Williams relies on his legs so much, putting a massive amount of torque on his body nearly every snap. When he was being carted off, he knew that his team’s chances of pulling off a comeback to beat the Vikings just took a big hit. He hoped he wasn’t going to miss significantly more time than that, but didn’t know until the MRI results came in. If it’s a crime to show emotion under those circumstances, then lock him up I guess.
Caleb’s only mistake is that he accidentally made himself the main character of the internet. You never want to make yourself the main character of the internet.
Meanwhile, he’s been reposting people defending him all day. He’s apparently fully immersed in the discourse, and he’s watching plenty of people make a fool of themselves. These Gen Z quarterbacks are different, and Caleb Williams has already proven the common fan just isn’t cool enough to handle it.
Usually when a Bears QB is being made fun of on the internet, I’m the one doing it. For once, the Bears actually have a quarterback who is worth defending. Caleb has always enabled the worst instincts of the biggest dolts on the internet. This is just another example. He’ll be back, making the same mind-blowing plays we became accustomed to seeing by the second half of last year. What will the internet say then?
