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Courtney Cronin, ESPN writer
LAKE FOREST, Ill. — Ahead of rookie minicamp on Friday, Bears coach Matt Eberflus wasted no time in naming Caleb Williams as Chicago’s starting quarterback.
“No conversation,” Eberflus said. “It’s the starter.”
Eberflus’ announcement confirmed the inevitable decision for the Bears after they drafted the former Heisman Trophy winner with the No. 1 overall pick last month. Williams was the only quarterback the Bears visited in the top 30, and Chicago was the only team Williams visited before the draft. Bears coaches began teaching the former USC quarterback their offense before his pro day in Los Angeles and again during Williams’ visit to Halas Hall in early April.
Williams also took it upon himself to work with his quarterbacks coach, Will Hewlett, on the basics of the Bears’ offense before taking the field for minicamp this weekend.
“You always want to go further if you can, and so with those things that they gave me, I would take it to my QB coach and we would use tempo, we would use drops, we would use all of those things, so this is not something I had in mind the whole time,” Williams said. The period of my arrival here.
Eberflus said the Bears gave Williams and Hewlett the fundamentals of the offense, which the quarterback said included verbosity, route tree, tempo and how to operate in and out of the huddle.
The head start gave Williams the confidence to help others learn the offense in rookie minicamp.
“I feel good right now,” Williams said. “Obviously we’re going to come out here today, we’re going to have some mistakes, probably, and things like that, and we’re going to work on eliminating them as quickly as possible. “But you need these things to grow and progress all the time and years and things like that. I’m very excited, but I feel good now.”
Eberflus said the Bears have several benchmarks they expect Williams to reach over the next few months before training camp.
“Complete understanding of the concepts: running, passing, checks, the basics of it,” Eberflus said. “The fundamentals we have set for him, he is fundamentally very good but we have some things we want him to work on and improve as well.”
