Bears’ Caleb Williams ‘doesn’t care much’ about outside criticism
LAKE FOREST, Ill. — Bears quarterback Caleb Williams said Wednesday that he “couldn’t care less” about the comments about his play after Chicago’s win on “Monday Night Football.”
“People are going to say what they have to say,” Williams said after the Bears extended their winning streak to three games with their second straight win over the Washington Commanders. “We win and we lose; people have something to say. He was lucky, he wasn’t lucky; people have something to say. It was a bad game; have a good game; people have something to say.
“It doesn’t matter. We’re just concerned about what’s going on here inside this building and with these people. That’s all I can say about that.”
Williams was questioned Wednesday about how his performance was described as “off” during ESPN’s “Monday Night Football” broadcast. Analyst Troy Aikman said Williams needed to do a better job of where he was throwing the ball to his receivers to allow them to get more yards after the catch.
As the Bears rallied from an eight-point deficit in the fourth quarter, Williams threw a short pass to D’Andre Swift, who took it 55 yards for a touchdown to cut Washington’s lead to two points. From the play, Aikman said senior safety Quian Martin missed the tackle, which led to Swift being as open as he was, and receiver DJ Moore pushing cornerback Marshon Lattimore onto Martin, who was supposed to cover Swift.
“Just some luck on Chicago’s part,” Aikman said on the broadcast. “It wasn’t really meant to be a choice [play]”But it turned into that depending on how you defended it.”
Williams said he was “messing around” and mocked Aikman’s description of the landing in an Instagram post on Tuesday.
“Cape Nations, good comeback!” Williams’ comment said. “He was lucky” -TA. Whoopty do [laughing emojis]”.
“D’Andre made a great play, obviously [Aikman] “I had some things to say about us or me, and I mean we came out victorious in the end,” Williams said Wednesday. “I had a little fun with it. That was about it.”
Bears coach Ben Johnson told team broadcaster Jeff Juniak that he watched part of the broadcast Tuesday morning while his children were watching the second half of the game while getting ready for school.
“It seemed from that game last night that some people weren’t particularly happy with the way we’re winning now,” Johnson said. “But listen, in this league, any way you can find a way to win is a big problem.”
When asked later if Aikman’s tone surprised him, Johnson said: “Maybe I was just putting it on mute.”
“We need to earn that respect not just from the rest of the teams in the NFL, but from everyone,” Johnson said. “Everyone is going to have their own opinion about us as a team and every player and every coach individually. You do your best to block out the outside noise. We know what we’re building here. We’re starting to believe in each other. The more time we have together, I feel that. I feel that that’s growing, and I think that’s the most important thing.”
“At the end of the day, you want to respect your teammates — especially the people you work with — and I think that manifests outside of the building as well with how you compete and what you put on tape as well. So, yeah, that’s a good thing. But at the same time, we’re more concerned with what we do on a daily basis and what we do for each other.”
Williams expected perceived criticism of his game to be used as motivation to move forward.
“When you’re in a competitive situation like a coach or myself or other teammates, when people have things to say about you, whether it’s a week or a whole year or whatever the case may be, I think you use it as a little bit of fuel, as a little bit of motivation,” Williams said. “I think that’s always part of it as a competitor. That goes along. But you don’t put so much into it that it negatively impacts you.”