The Chicago Bears went from an upstart team that had been performing well under first-year head coach Ben Johnson to an 11-4 squad that has already secured a playoff birth and is a few fortuitous results away from locking up an NFC North title. No player is as responsible for this turnaround as quarterback Caleb Williams.
Despite some early struggles in Week 16 against the Green Bay Packers, Williams came alive when it mattered and threw two of the biggest touchdowns in the last 10 years of Bears football. Williams sent the game to overtime with a fourth-down heave to practice squad receiver Jahdae Walker and won it with a bomb to DJ Moore to secure a 22-16 victory.
The Walker play may somehow have been more improbable than the Moore touchdown, as Williams chucked it into the back of the end zone on fourth down with a pass rusher breathing down his neck.
An alternate angle that shows what Williams' throw looked like from the Soldier Field stands has made its way onto social media. Even if the Bears don't end up winning a ton in the postseason, these throws will go down in history as some of the best plays a Bears quarterback has made in the last few years.
Alternate angle shows how crazy Caleb Williams' game-tying Week 16 TD pass was
Even though Williams is completing just under 58% of his passes, he does have 23 touchdowns against just six interceptions to his name. When paired with some impressive sack avoidance and improved pocket presence, Williams has developed quite nicely in Johnson's scheme.
This may have been Williams' most impressive performance of the season. Not only did he beat a division rival in a game with massive playoff implications, but he did so while playing without top receivers like Rome Odunze and Luther Burden III. Even without Micah Parsons, Green Bay has a defense that can cause some problems.
Williams was able to rise above all of those problems, which is the first time since what can be called the prime of Jay Cutler's career that Chicago fans felt comfortable in a quarterback's arm being enough to win them close games against divisional rivals.
Read more: Ben Johnson let Bears fans behind the curtain of gutsiest call against Packers
Williams showed that he has all the makings of a franchise quarterback, Walker got his moment in the sun after toiling on the practice squad, and the Bears beat their biggest rival en route to clinching a postseason birth. Week 16 could not have gone any better.