I’m not ashamed to admit that my head went to some dark places when Caleb Williams went down on a short snap in the fourth quarter of the Chicago Bears’ Week 2 game against the Minnesota Vikings. My first instinct was to blame the poor grass on Soldier Field. From there I cursed Mother Nature for the afternoon rain, rookie tight end Sam Rush. Throwing away the possible touch in the previous gameAnd because my dad made me emotionally invested in bears from an early age. Lying on the floor with a torn ACL in Game 1 of the 2012 NBA Playoffs, it didn’t take long to start thinking about Derrick Rose, forever changing what looked like a potential championship ceiling for the Chicago Bulls.
Williams For Bears fans, it always seems too good to be true He spent his time watching quarterbacks fail spectacularly under the pressure of the job. His orchestration of a 59-point outburst in Week 1 felt like a fever dream; Sure, I know there were NFL teams Hypothetical Playing such floaty, beautiful football, but not my team, my favorite, the dogshit Bears, the offense that goes to the team. NFL’s second-fewest total yards since 2002 (Just before the Jets, naturally).
Caleb was clearly hurt trying to stand on the field. As he was carted off to the locker room, hunched over to hide tears before emerging to give the home crowd a thumbs up, I was thinking the Bears’ season was over. i had A lot has been written Unrelated lower body injuries My time on this website has ended with disastrous consequences. I couldn’t bear to think about what would happen to my first Bears quarterback, who was clearly not only good, but a Chicago athlete capable of generating visceral electricity as MVP Rose approached.
The Bears lost, a disappointing 9-3 loss, but it was hard to care. The season rested on Williams’ injury diagnosis, and at this point, I was negotiating the third stage of grief. The first encouraging sign bears call is a hamstring rather than a knee or Achilles injury. Since then, Terrence Tomlin of The Bigs reports Williams was walking around the locker room after the game with a “very light” blemish and no braces. A few hours later Mike Florio guessed it was probably only 1st grade.. My guard was up until Monday morning’s MRI, but I was already feeling relieved that this wasn’t the career-changing injury I thought I’d just witnessed.
I woke up Monday morning looking forward to Caleb’s MRI. Instead, all I saw when I went online was Caleb being turned into a meme by the worst people on the internet, and by that I mean the ones who still have Twitter accounts. Every joke played on the same theme, Williams was overreacting to a minor injury, his strength now seemed in question. A few examples:
As Williams became the biggest punchline on the internet, his jokes got the validation they needed: An MRI determined that Caleb was “not seriously injured.” Head coach Ben Johnson called it “week to week.” After all, the team didn’t put him on short-term IR, which means he won’t even be able to practice for four weeks.
At this point, he felt a 4-6 week injury was the absolute best case scenario. That Williams may miss even less time than this is an outright miracle. The Pope of Chicago has done it again.
As relief spread across Chicagoland, everyone was sending me the same text message. From my brother: “Everyone is soft now without Caleb!” The tweets didn’t lose any gas.
There’s a part of me that gets it. Anyone who saw Williams go down at the time thought they were looking at a serious injury, possibly a season-ending one. As the Bears’ medical staff stabilized his leg on the gurney, I feared a career-altering torn Achilles. At the risk of changing this column to my versionBritney, leave him alone.” Girl, if Caleb Williams is going to have a hard time surviving an NFL-high 68 sacks as a rookie in the 2024 season, it’s going to be hard to survive some silly jokes on the Internet.
This is nothing new for Bears fans either. In the year In the 2011 NFC Championship Game, the entire world mourned the injury of Jay Cutler because the team initially listed him as questionable to return. Cutler tore his MCL, an injury that no player could face. Backup Caleb Haney enrolled, and the Bears lost to the rival Green Bay Packers, who had Aaron Rodgers’ only Super Bowl win. You can skip Cutler for a lot of things – let me start with his personal politics – But he was always dumb to question his strength.
Williams has endured jokes throughout his life. Football fans can’t stand a star quarterback who pulls his nails or cries in his mother’s arms after a college loss. Caleb had no desire to conform to the traditional masculinity lifestyle that had poisoned the minds of many fans, who thought that athletes who displayed emotions were disrespectful to them.
Everything is stupid. The same people who laugh about Williams’ lack of stamina can experience physical and emotional exhaustion when a DoorDash order is 15 minutes late. Netflix couldn’t handle the download for a day. None of them can stand in an NFL pocket for three seconds without soiling themselves, and I don’t think most of them even want to try how to change a tire.
The idea that fans have in their heads Caleb Williams If I Had Talent I Wouldn’t Do Something Like This (Edited) It is more than a trick. If you had the talent of Caleb Williams, you’d waste it because you’re addicted to the internet, your diet is unhealthy, and you’re too scared to do what Caleb does every week.
It should also be mentioned that a hamstring injury is a bad injury! Luka Doncic missed the playoffs by one, while OKC’s Jalen Williams basically missed all of last season trying to come back from one. Caleb Who said he called the cart? Better than sorry, especially with the first good QB the Bears have had in 80 years.
Over the past five years, I’ve noticed that fans in particular are too stupid to believe that a player is actually injured if it’s not a torn ACL or a torn Achilles – injuries usually take a certain amount of time to recover. Soft tissue injuries like hamstrings aren’t as obvious, but they’re still tough as hell to play with. Williams relies heavily on his feet, putting a lot of energy into his body almost every time. When he got off the cart, he knew his team’s chance to come back to beat the Vikings was a big hit. He hoped he wouldn’t miss any more time than that, but he wouldn’t know until the results of the MRI came back. If showing emotion in those circumstances is a crime, then I guess so.
Caleb’s only fault is that he made himself the protagonist of the Internet. You never want to make yourself the protagonist of the internet.
Meanwhile, he has been Repost people defend him All day long. He seems completely immersed in the conversation, and is watching a lot of people make fun of themselves. These Gen Z quarterbacks are different, and Caleb Williams has already proven that the typical fan isn’t good enough to handle him.
Most of the time when the Bears QB is mocked on the internet, I’m the one doing it. For once, the Bears actually have a quarterback worth defending. Caleb always evokes bad feelings from the biggest dolts on the internet. This is another example. He’ll be back with the mind-blowing plays we’re used to seeing in the second half of last year. So what does the internet say?
