It was the trade of Justin Fields that made it clear that the Chicago Bears were going to be selecting Caleb Williams with the first overall selection in the 2024 NFL Draft.
The timing of the trade was surprising as at the time of the deal, Williams did not have his Pro Day yet nor had he met with the Bears and exchanged his medicals.
In the weeks since, while nearly the entire NFL was present at Williams' Pro Day, the Bears were the only team to have met with Williams ahead of his Pro Day, and are the only team that the presumptive No. 1 pick has made a Top 30 visit with.
By this time next week, Williams will be the starting quarterback of the Bears.
Williams was recently on The Pivot Podcast and it allowed for a platform for him to share his reaction to when he found out that Fields was traded.
""I end up calling a couple people and was just like, ‘Welp, we know where their mind and heart is at in this instance.’ Let’s prepare and get ready and handle things accordingly and still do our due diligence on the situation and things like that. In that moment, it was kind of like, ‘Wow.’ Because I didn’t do my top-30 visit yet. They didn’t have my medicals and things like that. They have it all now and I had a good time on my top-30. But it was interesting right then in that moment because it was just so unexpected in that instance.”"Caleb Williams
What the trade of Fields did was clear the table for the Bears put all their efforts toward making sure Williams was the answer at the quarterback position. Avoiding the balancing act that would have been having Fields on the roster while Williams was entering Halas Hall with the intention of being his replacement was a wise move for the Bears. Regardless of what anyone says about the vetting process, it worked. The Bears, with a history of poor quarterback development, have become an ideal landing spot for a quarterback prospect that rivals Andrew Luck's arrival in the NFL.