LAKE FOREST, Ill. — If there has ever been a magic number for the Chicago Bears, it’s 85.
Because when you say “85” in Chicago, you think of Ditka and Payton, McMahon and Mongo, Hampton and Dent, “The Super Bowl Shuffle,” a 15-1 season and a desecration of the New England Patriots in New Orleans. You think of a brief period of prosperity and a team that will live forever in pop culture and our collective memory.
I bring this up because George “Papa Bear” Halas took Sid Luckman with the No. 2 pick in the 1939 draft. And the Bears have been looking for the next Luckman since he retired.
And so, 85 years later, the Bears, with Halas’ daughter Virginia McCaskey still the titular head of the team, might have found him in Caleb Williams, whom they took with the No. 1 pick of the 2024 NFL Draft.
The 85 has to mean something, right? Get me a numerologist.
We’ve known this pick was coming for weeks, months even. There was no shock like when the Bears traded up one pick for Mitch Trubisky or nine for Justin Fields. Williams knew it was happening. He was ready and he is ready. I think I can speak for Chicago and say we were all ready to stop talking about it.
“I didn’t know how I was going to react in the moment,” Williams said Thursday night. “I was trying to think through it in my head throughout the process, but nothing feels better than being in the moment, actually getting that call. I didn’t feel nervous. I didn’t feel any of that. “I was anxious and ready to go.”
Williams wore 13 at USC. And that’s 8 + 5. No, I’m not crazy.
The Bears hadn’t made a pick at No. 1 since 1947, when they took a halfback out of Oklahoma A&M named Bob Fenimore. I have lasted only one season. Last year, they traded out of No. 1 for DJ Moore and a haul of picks, including Carolina’s first-rounder. The Panthers were so bad, the Bears got another crack at the top one.
From Luckman to luck, man.
Maybe, just maybe, Williams is The One who can make the Bears forget about the long list of failed quarterbacks who have come and gone. Maybe Williams can be the one who makes the Bears consistent winners, a national team, for the first time since the Ditka era. Maybe Williams is the one who can boot Luckman off the TV graphics meant to poke fun at the Bears’ decades of offensive irrelevance.
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