Former Chicago Bears head coach Matt Eberflus disagreed with perceptions about his staff’s handling of quarterback Caleb Williams. Williams drew attention with claims that the previous coaching staff did not properly teach him how to pore over film. The remarks emerged in an excerpt from Seth Wickersham’s book, “American Kings: A Biography of the Quarterback.”
The crux of the story was Williams’ hesitation about joining the franchise before they drafted him with the No. 1 overall pick of the 2024 NFL Draft.
With Williams a Bear, though, his situation has taken center stage.
Cowboys DC Matt Eberflus Rejects Claims About Bears QB Caleb Williams
Caleb Williams Cleared Air Over Film Study
Former Bears head coach Eberflus joined veteran NFL reporter Ed Werder to discuss a variety of topics. The journalist broached the subject of Williams and film study.
“In the development of the quarterback position, and really all positions at my time at the Bears, we’ve always had daily, coached film sessions. That was out through the entire year. So, that’s what I observed, and that’s where it was,” Eberflus told Ed Werder on the “The Doomsday Podcast” on June 13
“That’s really all I have to say about it. But, yeah, that’s where it is.”
During “Hard Knocks,” Eberflus and Williams were featured in a segment as they went through clips. The QB also spoke with former offensive coordinator Shane Waldron and quarterbacks coach Andrew Janocko during the series.
However, according to Wickersham’s book, Williams told his father, Carl, “No one tells me what to watch.
“I just turn it on.”
Williams later met with the media during the Bears’ offseason program. He began by addressing that he wants to be a Bear and how unfortunate the timing of the excerpt’s release, ahead of the book’s September 9 launch date, was “unfortunate.”
However, Williams also pushed back on how the book portrayed his study habits.
“That was a funny one that came out. It wasn’t that I didn’t know how to watch film. It was more or less the sense of learning shortcuts in the sense of – or not learning shortcuts, but learning ways to watch film and be more efficient. Learning ways to you know pick up things better. And so, that was a funny one that came out that, in context and how I was trying to portray it, didn’t get portrayed that way,” Williams told reporters in May.
“It wasn’t that I didn’t know how to watch film. It was trying to figure out the best ways and more efficient ways so I can watch more film, I can gather more information so that when I do go out there on game day, … that information that I gathered through Monday when we got back all the way up to whatever day the game day is, so when I get out there, I can gather it I see it, I can react, and it’s not me sitting there, thinking so much about the rules and these different things. It’s more of a reaction game at that point, and muscle memory.”
Williams also touted the attention to detail that new head coach Ben Johnson has brought.
Bears Set to Face Historic Former HC in 2025
Eberflus holds a historic place in Bears lore. He is the first head coach the organization has ever fired during the season.
While he did not have much interest in discussing Williams with Werder, he will talk about him a lot during practice this coming season, particularly in the lead-up to the Cowboys visit the Bears in Week 3.
The Bears have lost three of their last four meetings against the Cowboys.
However, both teams have new coaching staffs, and they have not squared off since Week 8 of the 2022 campaign.