Can a number one pick take his team to the Super Bowl and still be considered a bust? Caleb Williams, the NFL’s least accurate quarterback of 2025 according to Next Gen Stats, is two wins away from seriously challenging that theory.
Although Williams is the toast of the league this week because of a league-leading seventh fourth quarter comeback to beat the Packers on Saturday, it is how the Bears quarterback plays for the rest of the game that the Los Angeles Rams should be happy about. Because when the game isn’t on the line, Williams is worse than J.J. McCarthy.
And even when the game is on the line, Williams might be rolling out to his left to throw a hail mary to an area of the field hoping to get lucky…when he had Colston Loveland wide open to the flat on the field side on his first read and didn’t even take the shot.
Because even though Williams is clearly one of the most talented quarterbacks in the league, and has been the starter for a Bears team that has won 11 games*, he may not fully understand yet what it would take to actually be a good quarterback and it’ll be interesting to see in the coming years if he’s willing to accept his faults and get better.
*The last 5 Bears QBs to win at least 11 games: Mitch Trubisky, Jay Cutler, Rex Grossman, Kyle Orton, and Jim Miller
Remember those guys? Because Chicago moved on from all of them shortly thereafter.
Despite Caleb setting the franchise record for passing yards (in a 17-game season with a franchise record number of pass attempts) and limiting his turnovers to just seven interceptions, the Bears might actually be leaving a lot of points on the field because of him.
What if I told you that in the category that many analytics fanatics call the gold standard for accuracy (completion percentage over expectation), Williams ranked below McCarthy, Michael Penix, and Cam Ward? And all 32 other qualified quarterbacks?
At -6.9% CPOE, Williams was significantly behind McCarthy at -5.2% in 32nd place and Penix at 3.2% in 31st.
If you prefer traditional stats, then fine: Williams had a completion rate of 58.1% in his second season. He’s not a rookie. Whereas quarterbacks like Penix and McCarthy are relatively inexperienced because of injury or age or failing to get onto the field, Williams was a three-year starter in college and has started every possible game in the NFL. That’s five consecutive years as a starter.
Caleb has thrown more passes in the NFL than McCarthy has thrown in college and the NFL combined. And yet you could argue that McCarthy — derided, criticized, and benched — actually finished the 2025 regular season stronger than Williams did; he actually won more games with the Vikings since the start of December than Williams has won with the Bears, including the playoffs.
Keep in mind that not only does Williams have arguably the top-ranked offensive play caller in the NFL right now with Ben Johnson, but Chicago also rebuilt their offensive line in the offseason with high-level moves at guard and center for players like Joe Thuney and Drew Dalman, drafted perhaps the top offensive rookie in Colston Loveland, a potential steal with Luther Burden, and already had D.J. Moore and Rome Odunze.
A lot of QBs have to overcome a poor rushing attack. Caleb has a top-3 rushing attack in yards and yards per carry. D’Andre Swift and Kyle Monangai combined for over 1,800 yards on the ground.
Compare that to 2024 draft-mate Drake Maye, who LED the NFL in completion percentage and is on an offense ranked 14th in yards per carry, throwing passes to Hunter Henry, Stefon Diggs, Kayshon Boutte, and Mack Hollins.
Does a team nursing a 6-point lead want to see Caleb Williams get the ball with 2 minutes left? No. He’s proven that he’s hard to stop in singular, high pressure situations, even when he practically tries to stop himself. However, in a QB-driven league, nobody left in the playoffs has had a worse season (or last 2 seasons combined) than Williams.
- Out of 33 QBs, Williams finished 33rd in Completion Percent Over Expectation
- Williams ranked 32nd in completion rate (58.1%)
- His completion rate did not improve at home (under 59% home and away)
- Williams is the first non-rookie QB to complete under 58% of his throws (including playoffs) since 2020 (minimum 300 attempts)
- Williams led the NFL in “bad throws” and bad throw rate (over 20% of his attempts)
- The only 2 QBs with a lower on-target rate were Shedeur Sanders and McCarthy
- Williams had the worst completion rate of any QB in wild card weekend AND he threw 2 picks
- The only wild card QB with a lower passer rating was Bryce Young against the Rams
- Williams led the league in incomplete passes
- The most incomplete passes for a QB with under 600 throws since 2010: Josh Freeman in 2012, Derek Carr in 2014, Cam Newton in 2016, and Caleb Williams in 2025
Newton comes to mind as a comparison to Williams for a number of reasons.
Number one, Cam would win a lot of games…every other season. He was an uber-talented Heisman-winning number one draft pick. His ability to extend plays could be a problem. His ability to extend plays and throw up “prayers” could also be a detriment to his own team. He couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn.
Cam Newton was so talented that he won MVP.
Cam Newton was so incapable of improving as a quarterback that the league retired him by the time he was 30. Newton loves to use this term “game-changer vs game manager” and he uses it as a negative connotation for the game managers. But did Newton, a zero-time Super Bowl-winner, ever stop to consider if what a coach like Ben Johnson REALLY needs is a high-level game manager?
As in, consider the fact that of the four quarterbacks left in the NFC playoffs, Sam Darnold and Brock Purdy would most likely fall under the game manager label? That oftentimes what makes Matthew Stafford special is the moments when he harnesses his immense talent and realizes that all he needs to do is protect the ball and hit his easy throws?
Can Caleb do that? Can he hit the easy throws? Can he even see the wide open throws?
How about we start at the baseline: Can he complete 60% of his throws?
The fact that Williams resembles 2016 Newton (instead of 2015 Newton) is a major red flag…Cam Newton was out of the league shortly thereafter. Josh Freeman threw 27 touchdowns in 2012, same number as Caleb, and he was on the bench in 2013. And he was out of the NFL by 2015.
Derek Carr was a rookie in 2014 when he had that many incompletions. He got better and more accurate. Did Carr ever become good? Would you ever call Derek Carr a generational QB?
After only completing 50% of his passes against the Packers on Saturday, Williams has a 57.5% completion rate for 18 games. Only 35 quarterbacks have had a completion rate under 58% in a season since 2010:
There are some moderate “success stories” in that bunch, like Joe Flacco and eventually Darnold. There’s also Brandon Weeden and Grossman. The last QB to complete under 58% of his passes on a minimum of 300 attempts? Zach Wilson in 2021.
And if you allow yourself to be the type of person who asks “What if?” then what if you gave Wilson the 2025 Chicago Bears with Ben Johnson? He might not be good. He might not be able to keep the job. But would he have been a lot better than being stuck with the Jets?
It stands to reason that most quarterbacks would be better in this situation.
Which leads into the next question: If the Bears make a QB better, and Caleb is by some measures not one of the top-30 starters in the league, how bad would Caleb Williams look on the Jets?
He has a completion rate of 58% even though he plays in an era where the league and the coaches have made it easier than ever to complete over 65% of your passes. That means that Caleb has an adjusted completion number of 74 (a 100 would be average) and that ranks as a tie for the 24th-worst season by a QB since at least 1968.
Now you may say to yourself, “But wait! Matthew Stafford had a 74 in 2009 with the Lions!”
That’s actually true. Stafford only completed 53.3% of his passes in 2009. He was also a rookie. He was also 21 years old. Caleb is 24. Stafford was an extremely raw quarterback at the time. How raw is a QB allowed to be in his second NFL season, after three starting years in college? Is he allowed to be this inaccurate when you know for a fact that quarterbacks like Drake Maye still do exist?
At this rate, his career is starting to look a little bit like the start of Kyler Murray’s career or Baker Mayfield’s career. A rough but promising start. A lot of talent clear on the film. They start to win games in year 2 and 3. The media crowns him as the next-great-thing at the position…but what happened with Murray and Mayfield after that? Is the Lincoln Riley connection between all three merely a coincidence?
And by the way, nobody is arguing that Caleb Williams IS a bust or that he couldn’t become a quarterback who is ACTUALLY GOOD in the future.
This is simply about the quarterback who the Rams will face on Sunday in the divisional round of the playoffs, not the quarterback who Williams could become in 2026 or 2027 or 2028:
This Caleb Williams was easily one of the worst passers in the league on short (under 10 air yards) and intermediate (11-19 yards) throws, ranking bottom-2 in accuracy in both categories.
This Williams had the worst passing stats of any quarterback in the wild card round, win or lose.
This Williams is so talented that he can make just one play…that makes the world somehow forget about the other 47. (24 incompletions in a playoff game is the most in three years, which was 45-year-old Tom Brady (in his final game) and Skylar Thompson)
It’s fascinating to watch the Bears win games that they almost lost, especially so many close games in one season. But there’s an aspect to that combination that gets lost when people talk about a former number one pick as talented as Caleb Williams:
“…they almost lost.”
The one-score win teams always win a lot of games. They also almost always lose in the playoffs before the Super Bowl because even though game-changers are far more exciting to watch in the two-minute drills, sometimes all you want is a quarterback who knows how to manage the other 58.
Or should I say 58.1?
