00:00Welcome back. Our Sports Grid Insider, Adam Kaplan, is with us. We got kind of a non-sports betting side story yesterday that we thought we would ask him about, about this book, American Kings, a biography of the quarterback.
00:13You know, Adam, I think a lot of folks are not going to be caught up on this at all, to be honest with you. They're just staring at us on the screen going, what are they talking about here?
00:21So a little background I'll give, and then you can take it from here, is, you know, this book that's out that basically exposed some stories amongst the National Football League, one of which was the backstory to the Caleb Williams initial era in Chicago with head coach Matt Eberthlis.
00:40Also the idea that maybe Williams didn't want to initially be drafted by Chicago, looking for ways out, like the UFL.
00:49So I'll stop there, let you take it from there, and also would definitely love your opinion as to whether or not this will affect his, how do I say this, his popularity rating in Chicago moving forward.
01:03So, yeah, Matt Eberthlis, the former Bears head coach, was responsible, really, the head coach, Craig, when you look at it, is always responsible for the roster.
01:12He doesn't pick the players, but he's got to coach them.
01:14And the word I was given, or the wording, or the phrasing was that Caleb Williams needed hard coaching, okay?
01:21He needed to be coached with discipline.
01:24He needed to know what was right and what was wrong in terms of the way he needed to play the game, and he just didn't get that last season.
01:30So, let's also go to the point, and this is, by the way, from Seth Wickersham's book, and Caleb Williams is featured in it, and his dad, Carl, who he speaks with.
01:41And it's just so funny that we bring the story up, because I remember talking to agents who were recruiting him, and one said that his dad, Carl, called his son the king, which I thought was funny.
01:53That's fine. I mean, he wound up being the first pick overall, which was expected.
01:58So, it was not an easy recruitment trying to sign the player.
02:02But to move this along here, what Williams wanted to do, or at least the inference was that, leading up to that draft, and you can see the quote that's out there,
02:13is the Bears are where quarterbacks are drafted to die.
02:16Why? Because they really have, if you really want to look at it,
02:18they've not gotten it right with their franchise quarterbacks, really, since Jim McMahon.
02:22They really have not gotten it right.
02:23And the hope is, internally, they believe it is, that Caleb Williams will be that guy.
02:29So, what happened was, and his father talks about it,
02:32they were looking ways of not getting drafted by Chicago,
02:36and I guess Caleb told Wickersham, it's quoted in there, that they wanted him to go to Minnesota,
02:41but because of Kevin O'Connell and the job that he's done developing quarterbacks.
02:44But, honestly, you can't circumvent the draft.
02:48It's collectively bargained.
02:50You can't do anything about that.
02:51You could tell the club, like going back to John Elway in 1982,
02:55hey, if you draft me, I'm not going there.
02:58And Ernie Korsi, the GM of the Colts, didn't want to trade him.
03:02And Robert Ursa, the owner, was the one who really traded him.
03:06We saw this happen with Eli Manning.
03:07Eli Manning said, I'm not playing for the Chargers.
03:10So, as we know, the Giants, speaking of Ernie Korsi,
03:14it's kind of ironic how it happens, he's the one who drafted him.
03:17He's the one who got him to the Giants.
03:19So, that's all he could really do.
03:20Look, he could say, listen, you could draft me, but I'm going to play in the USFL.
03:24You can do that.
03:26Like, you can play in another league, but you can't circumvent the draft.
03:29That's not happening.
03:29But the bottom line is, as we move forward here, Craig,
03:32when you look at the situation with the Bears, Ben Johnson,
03:35a big reason why he got that job.
03:37It's not the only reason.
03:38But the big reason was that he redeveloped Jared Goff with the Lions.
03:43He did a phenomenal job.
03:44And I could tell you as a fact, talking to people who work with Ben Johnson,
03:48he coaches hard.
03:49He gets on his quarterbacks in terms of footwork
03:53and the way you need to play the game.
03:55So, we're going to probably learn very early, Craig,
03:58in their relationship if it's working or not.
04:01Am I crazy, or did Bo Jackson circumvent the draft?
04:04Well, okay, we're going back to the mid-'80s here.
04:08So, yeah, as you know, he wound up playing baseball first instead of playing for the Buccaneers.
04:13Right, but didn't he get drafted by Tampa Bay and then left?
04:17He went to play for the Royals, and he came back and went to the Raiders.
04:22Right, he went to the Raiders.
04:23Right, now Davis was smart enough to draft him.
04:26They held his draft rights.
04:27So, yeah, that was a really smart move.
04:28Then, unfortunately, he broke his hip.
04:29But that ended his football career, and as you know, he played for the Royals and the White Sox.
04:34But the bottom line is, when you look at Caleb Williams getting back to the Bears here,
04:37it's going to be super fun to see what happens here.
04:40Because Ben Johnson is an absolute superstar.
04:42I've talked to guys who work with him.
04:44He coaches really hard.
04:45Caleb Williams is going to have to be receptive to coaching.
04:47We're going to see how that works out this season.
04:49Yeah, no, it is interesting because I think, you know, part of it,
04:52and you brought it up, is the bigger topic of now that that's sort of out there,
04:56that they were trying to find ways to circumvent.
04:58I wonder if we see that attempt even happen in the future.
05:03I know you can't now.
05:03The rules are probably different now than they were when Bo Jackson was there
05:06because it really doesn't make sense that he got drafted by Tampa
05:08and then the Raiders the next year.
05:09And he ended up playing for the Raiders.
05:11So, we're two years later.
05:13But either way, it's definitely interesting to see how he'll be received in Chicago.
