Matt Eberflus breaks silence on report Caleb Williams watched film on his own with Bears

After the Chicago Bears opted to bring him back in 2024, Matt Eberflus’ faced the task of helping develop No. 1 overall pick Caleb Williams. A defensive-minded coach, he brought in Shane Waldron as offensive coordinator to work closely with the former USC star.

However, things didn’t go well. The Bears fired Waldron mid-season and eventually moved on from Eberflus after a Thanksgiving loss to the Detroit Lions. All the while, Williams reportedly watched film on his own – without guidance from coaches, ESPN’s Seth Wickersham detailed last month.

For the first time since the quotes surfaced, Eberflus responded. He pushed back on the idea that Williams didn’t have coaches with him while watching film, based on what he saw.

“I would say this. In the development of the quarterback position – and, really, all positions at my time with the Bears – we’ve always had daily coached film sessions,” Eberflus told Ed Werder and Matt Mosley on The Doomsday Podcast. “That was all through the entire year. That’s what I observed and that’s where it was.”

Werder then brought up an exchange with Nick Saban – Eberflus’ college coach at Toledo – in which he cited the need to be hands-on while developing a young quarterback. Eberflus agreed with the sentiment but declined to comment further.

“That’s really all I have to say about it,” Eberflus said. “That’s what it is.”

Williams was sacked 68 times as a rookie, which is the fourth-most in NFL history. He also set Bears rookie records with 3,541 passing yards and 20 touchdowns, and the franchise made a splash this offseason by landing Ben Johnson to replace Matt Eberflus as coach. They also built the offensive line with additions such as Joe Thuney, Drew Dalman and Jonah Jackson.

Caleb Williams addresses 2024 NFL Draft

The idea of Caleb Williams watching film on his own was just one of the published excerpts from Wickersham’s upcoming book American Kings: A Biography of the Quarterback, which is set to release in September. It also detailed the way Williams’ family apparently approached the 2024 NFL Draft and potentially tried to avoid Chicago.

Speaking with reporters late last month, Williams gave a nearly four-minute opening statement addressing the “storm” that followed Wickersham’s article. It included quotes from both Williams and his father, Carl, which candidly revealed their concerns about heading to Chicago as the No. 1 overall pick in 2024.

“Something that keeps getting lost, something that keeps getting, I think, not being addressed the way it needs to be, is the fact that I went on that visit first,” Caleb Williams said. “Came here, and then after I came here … I went back home, talked to my dad and all of the things that were supposed to be these big things that everybody’s been talking about recently – one, never happened in the sense of, they were all thoughts. They were all ideas. And I think if you’re in the situation, I think if your son or daughter, anybody is in the situation to be in that position, I think you think about all of the options and you look at it, the history and the facts and all these different things. Those are thoughts that go throughout your head in those situations. All of those are thoughts.

“And then after I came on my visit here, it was a deliberate answer – and deliberate and determined answer – that I had is that I wanted to come here. … Just like Ben said, it’s a challenge to be able to come in here and try and turn it around. That was the main goal of all of that is through all of what was going on, through all of what happened and last year and previous years, I think that was enticing. I think that was something that was glaring to me, that and I want to come here and be the guy and be a part and be a reason why the Chicago Bears turn this thing around.”