Thanks to Caleb Williams, the Bears have a raging case of hope heading into training camp

The Bears haven’t been the reason to get up in the morning for, oh, the past 15 years. They’ve lost more than they’ve won. They’ve fumbled and bumbled, on and off the field. Too often they’ve been the bearer of bad news, the cop knocking on your door at night.

But look at them now, spreading genuine hope.

Give me a moment to process that.

OK, I’m better now.

The Bears open training camp this week, and it’s hard to remember a time when there was this much legitimate optimism — not the hayseed optimism that has certain Bears aficionados excited about a backup guard. Or a new defensive backs coach. Or a quarterback who started just 13 games in college.

This good strain of optimism is based on a defense that tied for the league lead in interceptions last season and on the arrival of quarterback Caleb Williams, whom the Bears took with the No. 1 overall pick in this year’s draft. Oh, who are we kidding? The optimism is based on Williams. So is the enthusiasm, the giddiness, the intoxication and the unfamiliar pep in one’s step. If you see people opening doors for one another for no other reason than to be nice, that’s the Williams Effect.

It’s a lot to put on a rookie, but here we are, adding more plates to the bench-press bar. Let’s see what ya got, kid. There will be obstacles. There already have been, with Williams experiencing some minicamp struggles. But everything about his elite skill set points to him having big success in the NFL. He has a strong arm. He’s accurate with his throws. He makes plays when disaster is swirling around him. You have to go back to never/ever to find a Bears quarterback with this much talent.

Here’s the part where we again try to preach restraint: This isn’t going to be easy. There will be times when the talent I described won’t be recognizable. There will be times Williams might look suspiciously like Justin Fields or, gasp, Mitch Trubisky. But talent usually wins out. If it does, the Bears finally will have their quarterback. When that quarterback actually shows up depends on Williams’ ability to adapt and the coaching staff’s ability to mold him.

One of the hot-take topics on ESPN the other day was whether Williams would throw for 4,000 or more yards this season. Easy there, guys. No Bears quarterback has ever done that. That doesn’t mean the goal is unreachable. It means the Bears have been awful at choosing quarterbacks.

Throwing for 4,000 yards isn’t Mt. Everest in today’s NFL. But it’s very difficult for a rookie to reach that elevation, and the Bears’ new offensive coordinator, Shane Waldron, will want a good run-pass balance to help protect his young charge. That’s a long way of saying that just because the Texans’ C.J. Stroud threw for 4,108 yards as a rookie last season doesn’t mean Williams will.

Readers of this space know that I wasn’t a fan of Fields’ abilities, but I will concede that Williams will go into this season with a much better collection of receivers than his predecessor ever had. In the offseason, the Bears traded for six-time Pro Bowl selection Keenan Allen, then chose Rome Odunze with the ninth overall pick in the draft. Put them with DJ Moore, who caught 96 passes for 1,364 yards last season, and you can understand the frat-party buzz among the faithful.

The whole thing is so far out of Chicagoans’ experience that it’s hard to describe the sensation. Otherworldly? Unnatural? Might there be guilt that you don’t deserve this, based on the franchise’s history?

I thought I was preaching restraint.

The best approach, the adult approach, is to wait and see what Williams can do. Good luck with that.

The Bears finished 7-10 last season with a defense that led the league in interceptions (22, along with the 49ers) and rushing yards. Part of that had to do with the Bears’ strong interior line defense and opponents' decision to throw often because of it. If they can add a pass rush, that would be nice. They finished second to last in sacks last season.

A good defense and an improved offense should mean a better Bears team, right? So should a 2024 schedule that is among the easiest in the league, based on opponents’ 2023 winning percentage.

But the mighty Lions (no, really) and the always-good Packers (yes, them) are still ahead of the Bears in terms of talent.

A 9-8 record sounds reasonable. Something tells me no one involved is in this for reasonableness.