Five years ago, Bears general manager Ryan Pace famously tried to trade three first-round picks to the Seahawks for quarterback Russell Wilson.
The Bears might have ended up with their own version of Wilson anyway.
That’s the comparison that Titans coach Robert Saleh made when asked about Bears quarterback Caleb Williams at the NFL annual meeting last week.
“He reminds me a little of — and I’m trying to put a ceiling on him because he could be better — Russell Wilson,” he said.
The most myopic Bears fans might wrinkle their nose and wonder if Williams could be better. Wilson, though, is a future Pro Football Hall of Famer who would be, hands down, the greatest quarterback in Bears history. He reached nine Pro Bowls and two Super Bowls —winning one — in his first 10 years in the NFL. His Seahawks teams won two-thirds of their regular season games and nine of 16 playoff games before he was traded to the Broncos and started a series of underwhelming stints with teams across the league. He’s currently jobless.
There’s a natural comparison between the size of the two quarterbacks — in a world of giants, Williams is listed at 6-1 and Wilson at 5-11. But most importantly, Saleh said, is what they both can do in the fourth quarter. Wilson ranks second among active quarterbacks with 32 fourth-quarter comebacks and 40 game-winning drives.
“It didn’t matter how the game started,” Saleh said. “You knew as the moment got bigger and bigger and bigger, he was going to become more and more dangerous. It proved in his fourth-quarter heroics.
“[With Williams], the game is never over, I don’t care what the score is. I don’t care what the situation is. I think the throw he made in the playoff game proves that.”
Saleh wasn’t wowed simply by Williams’ game-tying, back-pedaling touchdown pass to tight end Cole Kmet in the playoff game they’d eventually lose to the Rams in overtime. Before the Titans named him head coach in January, he was the defensive coordinator of the 49ers. In
