Caleb Williams is no stranger to the haters.
From his days at USC to being the No. 1 overall pick to leading the Bears back to respectability, Williams has come across his share of critics. He knows the more he wins, the louder the hollow hate will spew. He'll just listen and keep plugging along.
"Yeah, I love them. It's one of my favorite things," he said of the haters in a recent interview with the Pardon My Take podcast that aired late last week. "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 on the fire, and all you need is a little bit."
Williams grew immensely from Year 1 to Year 2, with Ben Johnson guiding the Bears from the NFC North gutter to the penthouse. Williams proved he can lead a winner, spearheading numerous late-game victories and making too many jaw-dropping plays to recount. He nearly led the Bears to the NFC Championship game, tying the tilt with the L.A. Rams on one of the most ridiculous touchdown tosses in NFL history, but Chicago eventually fell in overtime.
The strides Williams made in his first year under Johnson portend big things in 2026. Still, the haters will remain staunch in their criticism.
The 2026 Madden cover athlete was asked if he considers any of the critics correct or if their points have any validity. He responded with a flat, "no."
Williams was then asked if something like his completion percentage, which even Johnson has said he'd like to see improve, was something critics might be correct about.
"I throw the ball away the most to try and keep us in advantageous positions because I know coach will go for it on fourth down," he responded. "So, I'm not fearful of only having three downs. I also know our ability and how explosive we are, so I'm not fearful of, like I said, throwing out of bounds, dirting it. I obviously scramble and people count my scramble seconds of holding the ball, but it's a bunch of different things that I can go into that I know that people speak about. Stats aren't always something that you should look at. You should look at how they win games."
Williams' consistent accuracy has been a question through two years. He completed 58.1% of his 568 attempts last season, generating 3,942 yards with 27 TDs and 7 INTs. His completion rate ranked 32nd out of 33 eligible passers in 2025, per Pro Football Reference, ahead of only J.J. McCarthy's 57.6.
Even as he views some of those incompletions as part of how he runs the offense, Williams did admit he would like to increase that figure.
"Obviously I want to get that up, get the completion percentage up, but some of the things that I do on the field, it negatively impacts that," he said. "But we'll get it up this year just to shut everybody up and help everybody to understand."
Added Williams: "I've looked up all the greatest guys, from Peyton (Manning) to Tom (Brady) to Patrick (Mahomes), all these different guys. On average, most of them are 65 to 63 completion, 62 completion, which is surprising. At least to me it was surprising, because it was only two percent off, three percent off. So, we'll get it up. We'll make everybody's heart feel warm and lovely, and it'll also help us in the long run of winning games. Starting games better, starting games faster, doing all of those things."
Manning had a career completion percentage of 65.3. Brady, 64.3. Mahomes, thus far, 66.2 – with his 62.7 in 14 games last year the first time since becoming the starter in 2018 he was below 65.9. There is also the caveat that Manning and Brady's careers began in an era in which completion percentages weren't nearly as high as they are today. As offenses have evolved, and the game has become more short-game pass-centric in the past 10-15 years, completion rates have risen significantly. For example, the league average completion rate in 2025 was 64.3. In 2005, it was 59.5.
Regardless, one need not be a "hater" to admit that Williams still has areas to improve. One obvious place is as a station-to-station passer. While the QB is correct that some of his incompletions are throwaways or attempts to make a play out of structure, there were times last season when the offense stalled on a bad ball by the passer.
Williams is only entering Year 3. No quarterback is fully formed at this stage. The best continually evolve throughout the entirety of their careers. Iceman has plenty in his game to improve. The fact that he's still on the rise after the heights he showed last year should scare opponents.
