Jared Goff, Matthew Stafford, Andrew Luck, Michael Vick, Peyton Manning, Eli Manning, Troy Aikman, John Elway, Cam Newton. That’s only a sampling of the 36 quarterbacks drafted No. 1 overall. The Bears’ Caleb Williams is the first in that high-pressure club to win four of his first six starts.
Winning the seventh start, however, will be a stiff challenge. The marquee game on the Week 8 schedule is Williams and the Bears (4-2) at Jayden Daniels and the Commanders (5-2) on Sunday at Northwest Stadium (4:25 p.m. ET, CBS).
While Luck is the only quarterback ever selected No. 1 overall to start a playoff game as a rookie, Williams could be the second. Since the start of Week 4, Williams is 3-0 with a 74.1 completion percentage (60 of 95), 687 yards, seven touchdowns and one interception. His 122.8 passer rating over that span is third in the NFL behind a pair of MVP front-runners, Goff (153.1) and Lamar Jackson (136.7). Shane Waldron is also 3-0 in that stretch. Fresh off a bye week, the Bears’ offensive coordinator explained the recipe he used to help his No. 1 overall pick. It was the same formula Waldron used to help a former 39th-overall selection, Geno Smith.
“The biggest lesson that I’ve seen and tried to implement in each one of these things,” Waldron told Adam Jahns of The Athletic, “from the learning process of what we saw early on to what it was with Geno to what’s here now, is just not skipping any steps.
“Whether it’s a rookie quarterback or a veteran quarterback, it still comes back to great fundamentals, great understanding of defensive structure and building it from the ground up with each stop, so that when you get into the games, everyone’s on the same page.”
Keenan Allen has been on the same page. Since returning from injury three games ago, Allen has secured 11 of his 14 targets, including all five passes in his direction and two touchdowns in Chicago’s London win over Jacksonville. Williams threw four total touchdowns and just six incompletions in that game. He was also money on a fourth-down completion to Allen that milked the fourth-quarter clock.
“He was obviously in a rhythm after the first couple drives,” said Allen after the Bears’ 35-16 win over the Jaguars. “Even the fourth-down ball, the slant. When he’s in a groove like that and all the balls are catchable, then it’s pretty easy to play receiver.”
It’s not easy to play quarterback, especially as a rookie. But it’s becoming more commonplace in the modern NFL. Sunday’s game between Williams and Daniels, assuming the Washington quarterback returns from a rib injury, would mark the sixth time in league history that the top two selections square off as starting quarterbacks in their rookies seasons. The previous five, with No. 1 overall choice listed first:
- Bryce Young and C.J. Stroud (Week 8, 2023): Young won, 15-13
- Trevor Lawrence and Zach Wilson (Week 16, 2021): Wilson won, 26-21
- Jameis Winston and Marcus Mariota (Week 1, 2015): Mariota won, 42-14
- Peyton Manning and Ryan Leaf (Week 5, 1998): Manning won, 17-12
- Drew Bledsoe and Rick Mirer (Week 3, 1993): Mirer won, 17-14
Discover more from Pro Football Post
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.