For once, maybe, the Bears have perfect timing as QB Caleb Williams arrives for 1st practice

Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times

It’s rare for everything to fall so perfectly into place, especially for a team that has stumbled and tumbled through the last several decades like the Bears. But here they are with the right quarterback at the right time, poised to launch something spectacular with the arrival of No. 1 overall pick Caleb Williams.

How could it get any better?

Williams answered that Friday by showing up for rookie minicamp well ahead of where almost anyone in his position would be. While it was his first practice with the Bears, he has been immersed in their offense for more than a month and has been working with his personal quarterbacks coach to prepare for how the Bears will train him.

It seems to have been the case at every checkpoint for Williams: He’s ahead of schedule.

“They gave me a bunch of notes, ideas of how the offense is, verbiage, drops, cadence and all the things that really matter ... so right now I feel pretty good,” he said of his readiness. “I’m gonna have a few mess-ups probably, [but] working to eliminate those as fast as possible.”

Williams drilled the Bears’ terminology, footwork, route tree and other aspects with trainer Will Hewlett so he’d be fluent and comfortable in it by the time he hit the back fields at Halas Hall for rookie minicamp. Chairman George McCaskey and team president Kevin Warren were on the sideline for his first practice as he zipped passes to No. 9 pick Rome Odunze.

After about an hour and a half on the grass, Williams went through the huddle — comprised mainly of undrafted free agents and players on a weekend tryout — slapping everyone’s hands. The rookies practice again Saturday, then his next step is to be ready for the rest of the team to show up for Organized Team Activities on May 20.

Williams is trying to master the offense so thoroughly that he can teach it, which is a good sign that he understands the role he’ll have. He must be authoritative, yet simultaneously recognize how much he still needs to learn.

“I'm listening — having both ears open and my mouth shut,” he said. “When I get to the point when I learn everything... then you can start taking the lead. For right now, though, I'm listening more than I'm speaking.”

It’s a turning point at Halas Hall, and optimism is peaking. The Bears aren’t hanging on to see if Matt Nagy can finally figure it out. They aren’t in a full teardown amid the rebuild. They aren’t spending each day looking for signs that Justin Fields is the guy.

Instead, they’ve got a prized rookie walking into an ideal situation. When coach Matt Eberflus walked into a standing-room-only media room for his news conference Friday, he marveled, “Wow, this is a popular spot today.”

Get used to that.

Williams became the most important person in the organization the night the Bears drafted him — maybe even before that — and he already is arguably the most popular Chicago athlete four months before his first game. He made noise on social media last week merely by popping into a Chicago-area Target to buy toiletries. The attention is at an atmospheric level compared to Fields or Mitch Trubisky.

Williams has embraced that at every turn, including Friday when he leaned into the microphone at the end of his news conference and said, “Da Bears,” before heading out to practice.

Eberflus is equally enthusiastic as the fan base and raved about how Williams’ “light comes out from the inside — you can certainly feel that energy” and called him a “one-plus-one-equals-three guy,” meaning he makes others better.

“He’s an enhancer,” Eberflus said. “He’s a guy that brings out the best in people. You can certainly feel that in him within five minutes of meeting him.”

When asked how different this feels compared to his first season as coach, when he inherited Fields and had to reteach some things after the previous staff bungled his rookie year, Eberflus called the opportunity to start over with Williams “refreshing.”

“We’ve always had positive energy in the building, but now it’s enhanced even more,” Eberflus said. “We’re excited about that.”

One unique aspect of the Bears drafting Williams was the inevitability of it. They were moving in that direction within weeks of the season ending, at the latest, and since they had the No. 1 pick, they were certain they’d get him. Their pre-draft evaluation often seemed a lot like an onboarding process.

That’s why he knows so much about the offense already, and that’s why they know so clearly what they have in him.

Eberflus named Williams his starter before his first practice, and that’s a move so obvious it’s barely worth mentioning. He’s the former Heisman Trophy winner who was the runaway favorite to go first in the draft. The Bears’ other options are Tyson Bagent, Brett Rypien and undrafted rookie Austin Reed from Western Kentucky. There was no need for a competition and, as Eberflus put it, “no conversation” necessary.

But saying that publicly does further illustrate how committed the Bears are to getting this right in every possible way — diverging from the missteps of Ryan Pace, John Fox and Nagy when they brought in Trubisky in 2017 and Fields in 2021.

There’s no goofiness this time, no inexplicably promising the starting job to Mike Glennon or Andy Dalton. There was no choice but to trade Fields to the Steelers, and if they hadn’t found a taker, they would’ve cut him rather than clutter Williams’ path to grow into the franchise quarterback.

And as Williams continues to adjust, offensive coordinator Shane Waldron must do the same. It’s imperative that he tailors his scheme to Williams’ strengths.

“Absolutely,” Eberflus said.

Given how far Williams already has progressed, that shouldn’t be too difficult.

Eberflus and general manager Ryan Poles first met him in late February at the NFL scouting combine, and the Bears gave him his first glimpse of the offense to see how quickly he grasped it. They continued teaching him in meetings in Los Angeles leading up to his pro day at USC the next month and essentially treated his pre-draft visit to Halas Hall in April as employee orientation.

Their goal has been to fast-track everything for a player they believe can handle it. They want him ready to lead a team that’s built out at nearly every other position. If the rest of Poles’ roster is as sturdy as it appears and Williams gets himself NFL-ready by September, for once, the Bears will have had perfect timing.