The Draw Play

Caleb knew it was going to happen. He knew he was going to a bad place. He knew, just like we knew.

A report came out recently about Caleb’s attempts to avoid the Bears. It is from a book titled “American Kings: A Biography of the Quarterback” by Seth Wickersham. The book has details about how Caleb didn’t want to play for Chicago. His dad attempted to find a workaround to avoid the Bears completely, such as playing in the UFL for a year. Caleb eventually seemed to come to terms with the idea of playing for the Bears. Maybe he just didn’t think he’d be able to truly pull off the Eli/Elway move, despite his dad literally talking to Archie to see how. You also have to imagine he was afraid of the injury risk of playing in the UFL and then losing all his stock in some way.

Dude was right to be worried. One of the ancedotes in the book is about how Caleb was frequently left to his own devices in the QB room. Stuck with no direction. No coach was helping him. Eberflus was probably with the defense, and OC Shane Waldron is a football war criminal. Caleb was fucked. We all saw how the season went. Dude was trying to play hero ball all year long because there wasn’t anything else he could do. The offensive line was ass and they didn’t try to find ways to fix it. Caleb never looks like he was running an offense in 2024. He just looks like they threw him out there trusting that he’d be the savior somehow. The result was the first mid-season coaching fire in Bears history and a complete waste of Caleb’s rookie year.

Caleb is going to be an extremely interesting watch this year. Ben Johnson might not have head coach juice, we don’t know yet, but he undoubtably has offensive brain juice. The hope here is Jared Goff 2, similar to how Jared Goff was a trainwreck bust until McVay showed up. Johnson helped turned Goff from a mid-level QB to a top 10 guy in Detroit. Can he save Caleb? Probably not immediately but he’ll likely have a positive impact. The Bears signed C Drew Dalman, G Joe Thuney, and G Jonah Jackson to bolster that horrendus o-line. They grabbed TE Colston Loveland in the first round, which makes sense, Ben Johnson loves his Tight Ends. They also drafted WR Luther Burden III to give Caleb another target, and tackle Ozzy Trapilo in the second to further help that line. Really the only thing the offense feels like it needs is a true solid RB. It is hard to not at least be optimistic for the new Bears. Maybe they can manage a 4k yard passer and a pope in the same season.