The Chicago Bears may keep hearing the same question, but the answer hasn’t changed: Caleb Williams was still the right pick at No. 1 in the 2024 NFL Draft.
That debate has resurfaced again after Zacharty Pereles of CBS Sports put together a re-draft of the 2024 class. In his version, the Bears would have gone a different direction at the top, taking Drake Maye first overall instead.
That choice isn’t exactly a shock on its face. Maye was an MVP candidate last year and played in the Super Bowl, which gives any re-draft argument some real weight. But it also shows how quickly these exercises can get trapped by whatever happened most recently.
After the 2024 season, Jayden Daniels was the name sitting at the top of nearly every re-draft. He had been an MVP candidate, won Rookie of the Year, pushed the Washington Commanders into the playoffs and then delivered a huge playoff win over the Detroit Lions to send them to the NFC Championship game.
Then 2025 happened, and the picture shifted again. Daniels was not the same player, and after being viewed as the best quarterback in the class, he has now settled into the consensus third spot.
Williams, meanwhile, was in a rough situation as a rookie and got plenty of grace for it. He had been the consensus second pick, ahead of Maye, who showed even less during his first season.
In year two, Williams took a step forward. He didn’t make the same kind of leap Maye did, but he did win a playoff game, too. And because Williams was already drafted ahead of Maye, and was still ranked ahead of him after their rookie seasons, there’s a real case that he can keep growing and stay in front of Maye in the long run.
That’s the bigger point here. A lot of these re-draft conversations are really just reactions to the last thing we saw.
Daniels had the best year in 2024, so the Bears should have taken him. Maye had the best year in 2025, so the Bears should have taken him.
If Williams has the best year in 2026, the whole conversation flips again.
For now, the key difference is that Williams has been the steady one. While Daniels and Maye have bounced between the top spots, Williams has mostly held firm at No.
- Fewer swings, fewer lows, and maybe a better chance to end up as the best of the group over time - which is exactly what Chicago had in mind when it made the pick.
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Still, the conversation around this team keeps circling back to the same question: can the rest of the roster keep pace with the hype? Chicagos knack for surviving tight games last season, including a string of fourth-quarter comebacks, suggests the Bears know how to hang around when things get messy. But if the offense is ready to take off, the bigger test may be whether the defense can hold up well enough for those gains to matter in January. [Read more 🡒]