Bears QB Caleb Williams Hears the Haters and Uses Them as Fuel

Caleb Williams is used to having haters. 

That's a part of the territory that comes with being a former five-star recruit in high school, Heisman Trophy winner and the No. 1 overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft.

Instead of ignoring all the outside noise from random social media users or people in the media, Williams will engage and even call out individuals through his social media platforms. 

One example happened after the Bears' 25-24 win over the Washington Commanders last season. Williams posted a carousel of images and a part of the caption read, "It was lucky" -- TA

TA stands for Troy Aikman, the Hall-of-Fame quarterback and color analyst for the Monday Night Football game between the Bears and Commanders. Aikman said there was some "luck" on D'Andre Swift's 55-yard touchdown reception. 

Williams to exception to that and made his feeling known. 

The Bears' quarterback joined "Pardon My Take" with Dan "Big Cat" Kats and PFT Commenter (Eric Sollenberger) and shared his thoughts on his haters.

"Oh, I love them, it's one of my favorite things," Williams said.

Williams even acknowledged that he will use some of the things he sees and hears about him as fuel. 

"Oh yeah," Williams said. "I don't need them, but it's always a little extra belief in myself, a little extra confidence in myself, it's a little more delusion that I add to myself. It's all these things combined and it just throws a little bit of gas onto the fire, and all you need is a little bit."

Something that often comes up from Williams' critiques is his 58.1 completion percentage from last season, which was one of the lowest among all starting quarterbacks. 

Williams had a message for his biggest doubters. 

"I throw the ball away the most to try and keep us in advantageous positions because I know Coach (Ben Johnson) will go for it on fourth down," Williams said. "So, I'm not fearful of only having three downs. I also know our ability and how explosive we are. I'm not fearful of throwing it out of bounds, dirting it. I obviously scramble and people count my scramble seconds of holding the ball, but there are a bunch of different things that I can go into that I know people speak about. Stats aren't always something that you should look at. You should look at how they win games."

During the interview, Williams shared that he has looked up the completion percentages for quarterbacks like Peyton Manning, Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes, and he was surprised to find out their career completion percentages.

Although Williams doesn't put any input to what people have to say about him, he knows increasing his completion percentage will help the Bears win games and start them faster. It will also do one more thing. 

"We'll get it up this year just to shut everybody up and help everybody to understand," Williams said.