Caleb Williams vs. history

 The NFL Draft in Detroit is two days away, and you know what that means, Blobophile(s). 

"More lame jokes about Mel Kiper's bulletproof hair?" you're saying.

Nah, that's such a tired schtick it laid down in the middle of the road during rush hour and fell sound asleep.

"More ridiculing NFL general managers for the way they over-analyze everything?"

Nah, there's only so many way you can make fun of draft analysts obsessing over "tight skin", "burst" and "waist-benders."

"How the Bears will manage to screw up Caleb Williams, since it's almost certain they'll take him with the No. 1 pick?" 

Ah. Now you're getting warmer.

Now you're coming right down the street of a guy who grew up watching Jack Concannon throw the football into Lake Michigan and Bobby Douglass decapitate receivers with 110-mph swing passes, and learned early on how to tell  the difference between Peter Tom Willis and Slo-Mo Bob Avellini. (Hint: There was no difference).

So let me voice a healthy amount of skepticism that Caleb Williams, who has been pronounced to be All That by the people who look for tight skin in a player, will actually be All That.

I think he's got skills. I think he throws a good ball from a variety of stances and even non-stances. But is he that much better than Jayden Daniels or Drake Maye or Michael Penix or anyone else who won't be getting drafted by the Bears?

I don't think so. And not because of arm strength or eye-hand coordination or the hypotenuse of the cerebral cortex divided by the patellar tendon times the Heimlich maneuver squared or some such business.

It's because it's almost the Bears will take him with the No. 1 pick.

Every team has its own identity, and the Bears' identity, for as far back as most of us can remember, is that they never have a Dan Marino calling signals for them. Or a Johnny Unitas or Joe Montana or Tom Brady or Peyton Manning, for that matter.

Chicago is where quarterbacks go to die, in other words, or at least where they go to contract raging cases of Interception-itis. It's where Concannon and Douglass and Slo-Mo Bob and Peter Tom Willis go to hear "Dis guy sucks!" from the perpetually suffering Bears fan base. It's where Jim McMahon won a Super Bowl handing off to Walter Payton, throwing the occasional bomb to Willie Gault and watching the Bears defense vacuum-pack opponents.

Chicago is where McMahon  could complete a titch over half  his passes and throw almost as many picks as touchdowns and still win a ring.

It's where the only other time the Bears made the playoffs, Rex Grossman (or as he is colloquially known in  the greater Chicagoland area, "F****** Rex Grossman") was their quarterback.

That's some heavy history Caleb Williams will be swimming against, in other words. So if he indeed does become Patrick Mahomes 2.0, it will be a greater miracle than an open lane on the Dan Ryan at rush hour.

The Bears, to their credit, have done what they could to give the kid some weapons. They got De'Andre Swift from the Lions to beef up their running game, and Keenan Allen from the Chargers to pair with D.J. Moore. And they got Gerald Everett from the Chargers to deepen a tight room led by the dependable Cole Kmet.

And yet ... they're the Bears.

Who will almost certainly take Caleb Williams just three years after taking Justin Fields, figuring he was their quarterback of the future. And who Bears-ed that one up, right on cue.

Fields, see, turned out not to be the Man but just one more quintessential Bears Quarterback, although the Blob remains unconvinced he wouldn't eventually have become more than good enough to take them where they want to go. Now it's Williams' turn to try to break a particularly stubborn mold.

Natural-born pessimist and longtime Bears observer that I am, I wish him luck. Because God knows he'll need it.