Caleb Williams won’t play his first NFL snap until September but his first season of professional football effectively already started. The No. 1 pick in the 2024 NFL draft attended rookie minicamp last month and is currently in Chicago for mandatory minicamp with the rest of his Bears teammates. It seems he’s already making a strong impression.
Bears tight end Cole Kmet spoke to reporters on Tuesday about Williams’s insane competitive nature and shared a story to illustrate that trait. Kmet explained they had gone to Top Golf for an outing after practice and stayed there until 1 a.m. because Williams “had to finish the game.” Kmet was quick to note he beat his quarterback.
#Bears TE Cole Kmet says the one thing he’s learned about Caleb Williams is how competitive he is. They were at Topgolf recently, and even though the place was about to close, Caleb insisted on finishing the game.
The selling point of Top Golf is that it is fun and casual. Not to Williams, apparently. He wanted to win the Angry Birds target game so badly he stayed several hours past closing.
These are the sort of anecdotes that fans will hear plenty of this time of year. It’s a staple of hype season— nobody hesitates to share these kinds of stories because they want to say nice things about their rookie teammates. Sometimes it’s a sign of things to come, but more often than not such stories are forgotten once players step foot on the field.
Bears fans will find out for themselves soon enough if this particular tale is actually reflective of Williams’s competitive nature.
Welcome to the NFL offseason, where receivers get paid lots of money (just ask Justin Jefferson, A.J. Brown, DeVonta Smith, Amon-Ra St. Brown, Jaylen Waddle and Nico Collins), the NFL continues to push for an 18-game season, the league and NFLPA discuss ways to ruin the offseason calendar and teams continue to go through their OTAs and mandatory minicamps.
So we asked our MMQB staff of NFL experts to answer a series of eight questions over the next two weeks. They debated the worst move Wednesday, so today they’re going to weigh in on the most improved teams.
Let’s get to their answers as we get closer to the NFL taking a break before July training camps.
Matt Verderame: Chicago Bears
The Bears not only added Williams, but added a weapon for him by selecting Odunze with the No. 9 pick / Kamil Krzaczynski-USA TODAY Sports
The Bears not only added Williams at the sport’s paramount position, but they also traded for veteran receiver Keenan Allen before nabbing wideout Rome Odunze with the No. 9 pick, giving them a duo of talented pass catchers to go with DJ Moore.
With a defense boasting talent at all three levels including edge rusher Montez Sweat, linebackers Tremaine Edmunds and T.J. Edwards, corner Jaylon Johnson and safety Jaquan Brisker, the Bears have talent in a way they haven’t since the days of Brian Urlacher and Matt Forte.
Should Williams realize his potential, Chicago could challenge for a playoff spot and potentially more in the NFC.
Gilberto Manzano: Washington Commanders
There’s usually one team that goes from last to first most NFL seasons. I’m not saying the Commanders will win the NFC East, but I’m giving them the best odds after finishing 4–13 last season.
Washington has drastically improved in various areas and not just with the roster. There’s optimism in the nation’s capital because Josh Harris replaced Dan Snyder as team owner. And new GM Adam Peters and coach Dan Quinn had a strong first offseason in Washington.
Quinn could quickly build a formidable defense with the many savvy moves Peters made, including the signings of Dorance Armstrong, Frankie Luvu, Bobby Wagner, Jeremy Chinn and many other defenders. And it helps that Quinn already has head coaching experience from his time with the Atlanta Falcons.
I would say the Bears but Matt already jumped on the answer and did a fine job of articulating why. I’ll throw the Giants into the ring for two reasons: Brian Burns changes the calculus of this defense, and I like the combination of Brian Daboll and Drew Lock and am very curious to see if it ends up bearing some Geno Smith-ian fruit for the Giants. While I wasn’t sold on Malik Nabers as the best available wide receiver at that point, I think this team can win between eight to 10 games this year despite not having what one would consider a transformative offseason. The Giants are still low on weapons, but their offensive line will develop (read: has to develop) and this defense is seriously formidable, though I would have liked to have seen a repair in the Wink Martindale–Brian Daboll relationship to the point where Martindale would have gotten to use Burns.
Albert Breer: Arizona Cardinals
The Cardinals selected Harrison with the fourth pick in the draft, giving Arizona a playmaker at a premium position. / Rob Schumacher/The Republic / USA TODAY
I like the Giants and Bears, too, but Arizona has quietly continued to do very logical things to improve its roster, and set up a sustainable future. Moving Paris Johnson Jr. to left tackle, and signing Jonah Williams at a very reasonable price to replace him on the right side made the Cardinals younger, and better at the position. Marvin Harrison Jr. could quickly be among the NFL’s best skill players, and, thus, change the math for the rest of Arizona’s skill group. Top-100 picks Darius Robinson and Max Melton are tough, competitive, program fits at premium positions for the defense.
And, then, there’s Kyler Murray, who really seems to have turned a corner from a leadership standpoint since tearing his ACL two years ago. He’s been in the building and around the team more, while cementing himself as the triggerman for GM Monti Ossenfort and coach Jonathan Gannon’s build.
Now, I’m not saying the Cardinals are going to the playoffs. But I wouldn’t be stunned if they got to .500 or better, which would be a nice Year 2 jump for the group they have in charge.
Now that the dust has settled from the NFL draft, it's time to examine some early futures markets and see where we can find value. Passing props have been released for several rookie signal-callers, giving us some insight into how Las Vegas values NFL freshmen.
Today, we kick off a new series, "Bet This, Not That." Use these articles as a guide for being creative and finding value when placing your wagers.
Regarding futures bets, weighing the payout vs. the time you'll tie up your bankroll is wise. Generally, I don't bet on season-long totals because that value is hard to find. But sometimes, there is a way to find value, or at least to get "hints" where you can find values in other markets. You can even use these markets as a good cheat sheet for how high to draft a player in your fantasy football drafts.
Let's look at the early futures markets for Bears QB Caleb Williams, the first overall pick in the 2024 NFL draft. All odds come from DraftKings Sportsbook.
Bears quarterback Caleb Williams at the NFL draft.
Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports
Passing Yards: Over 3500.5 (-110) | Under 3500.5 (-110)
Passing TDs: Over 23.5 (-105) | Under 23.5 (-120)
First, let's start with some recent and historical trends:
Only 13 rookie quarterbacks have passed for more than 3,500 yards since 1970. Nine of those quarterbacks debuted in the last 10 seasons.
In 2023, rookie C.J. Stroud passed for 4,108 yards, ranking third behind Justin Herbert (4,336) and Andrew Luck (4,374). All three passers won Offensive Rookie of the Year.
Justin Herbert's 31 passing touchdowns as a rookie in 2020 remains the most of all time.
Only five rookie passers since 1970 have tossed 24+ touchdowns in their debut season, one of which was Daniel Jones.
Based on these historical facts, Las Vegas is high on Williams according to the opening market for his season-long stats.
The Bears have created a dream situation for the rookie signal-caller. Williams has two elite veteran wideouts in DJ Moore and Keenan Allen, not to mention a solid pass-catching tight end in Cole Kmet and a pass-catching running back in D'Andre Swift. The Bears also added All-American wideout Rome Odunze out of Washington with their ninth pick in the NFL draft.
The Bears' defense is improving, the O-line should provide ample pass protection, and new OC Shane Waldron has a reputation for getting the most out of his quarterbacks. The Heisman winner out of USC has everything going in his favor.
However, it's also worth noting no Chicago Bears rookie has ever come close to these numbers. In fact, only two Bears quarterbacks have surpassed 3,500 passing yards: Jay Cutler (2009, 2014, 2015) and Erik Kramer (1995). No Bears QB has passed for more than 3,900 yards in the franchise's history.
So, will Caleb Williams set new standards in Chicago? With everything aligning, the Bears are certainly betting on it.
But I'm not.
I'm fading the futures market for Williams, though I will draft him as a QB2 in my fantasy leagues.
If you're high on Williams but want to bet for better value, consider his OROY future, which pays +200 instead. That makes him the favorite for the award, and though it may not be the best overall value for the OROY award, it's a better value than betting the over on his season-long player totals, and it has a chance to cash even if he falls short of his totals. After all, the odds for the Bears to make the playoffs are (-125). I'd rather tie up my bankroll for a chance at the plus-money payout.
Bet This: Williams OROY (+200)
Not That: Williams over 23.5 passing touchdowns (-105)
Five years ago, in “The Art of Coaching” documentary that highlighted the bond between Bill Belichick and Nick Saban, the then-Alabama coach ripped off a rant on NFL teams, and how they handled evaluating his players ahead of the draft.
“One thing that you do, that a lot of the NFL guys don’t do, I don’t know that you’ve ever picked one of our guys if you never talked to me before picking him,” Saban said to Belichick. “And there’s a few other guys in the league that do that. But then there’s another 30 teams that I never hear from, and then they pick somebody and I’m saying, ‘They picked that guy?’ And then they say, ‘Well, we didn’t know this.’ Well, all you had to do is call and I would have told you the good stuff and I would’ve told you any issue.”
Count the Detroit Lions as a team that listens to Saban.
Two consecutive years, they’ve come away from the NFL draft with the guy NFL folks had tabbed as the legendary coach’s favorite in the class. Last year, it was Brian Branch, who became an integral part of the Detroit defense, and a Swiss Army knife for defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn. This year, it’s Terrion Arnold, a corner the Lions never thought would be there in the 20s.
Detroit had actually laid groundwork for a trade up—I believe Missouri DE Darius Robinson was the target—which made it easy to pivot and get aggressive in going up from No. 29 to No. 24 to land a falling Arnold.
For his part, Saban loved how Arnold took hard coaching, and attacked the challenge the coaches put in front of him, in sticking with him at corner rather than projecting him to safety like other schools had in recruiting him. Also, Detroit took note of how Saban played him at the “star” position (nickel corner), as well as outside corner. As the Lions see it, being deployed as the star at Alabama is a huge sign of trust and respect from Saban, because of the mental and physical burden he puts on that spot, and the versatility he demands from it.
Branch, for what it’s worth, played a lot there, too.
In this case, it wasn’t like it had been the year before, where GM Brad Holmes personally connected with Saban (they’d talked about Branch and Jahmyr Gibbs last year). But Detroit did have a couple of high-level staffers get to Saban on Arnold, confirming what they’d seen. Which, in the end, made going after Arnold a no-brainer when he slipped.
• There are a lot of stories where a fortunate twist can play into a team drafting a certain player—and the Chargers will have one of those from 2024 if, years from now, OT Joe Alt becomes the sort of franchise cornerstone Joe Hortiz and Jim Harbaugh think he can be.
The fact that the GM and coach were new did limit, to a degree, what they were personally able to do during this draft cycle. But the Chargers were able to get guys out on the road enough, both on the coaching and scouting side. And one such lieutenant that traveled around was veteran line coach Mike Devlin.
As luck would have it, he was assigned to run drills for the offensive line prospects at Notre Dame’s pro day in March. That allowed Devlin to challenge Alt, and to also get to know him better with the extra time he’d get with the Irish captain. Now, it’s not like there were too many revelations on the visit. Everyone knew what sort of player he was. But with the Chargers also liking Alabama RT JC Latham, the little things did make a difference.
The biggest question now is where Alt will fit on the line. All 33 of his starts at Notre Dame came at left tackle, the position Rashawn Slater plays for the Chargers. The plan is to let Alt compete for the starting right tackle spot. That said, he played tight end in high school, and wound up starting at left tackle as a true freshman at Notre Dame. So the lift might not be as heavy for Alt as it would be for others.
And that’s what made this pick so easy for the Chargers. Alt will figure it out, and at a baseline be a really good pro with a chance to be much better, making him the rare high floor-high ceiling prospect. He has some stuff to work on such as his ability to anchor (though the Chargers would tell you to watch how, in those spots, he bends and recovers). But with the presence and intelligence he showed the Chargers in meetings, it’s a good bet that Alt will keep ascending.
The Chiefs guaranteed all $17 million of Kelce's salary for 2024.
Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports
• The Chiefs did right by Travis Kelce, giving the future Hall of Famer what amounts to a plain-old raise Monday—usually teams will require adding years to a player’s contract in exchange, or moving money away from a future year, for giving them this sort of pay bump.
Kelce’s existing contract had a $12 million base salary for this year, with another $750,000 in per-game roster bonuses, and a $250,000 roster bonus. The Chiefs gave him another $4 million, guaranteeing all $17 million for 2023. They left his $17.25 million for 2025 intact, added a trigger that’ll guarantee most of it in March (in the form of an $11.5 million roster bonus due on the third day of the league year), and force the team to make a decision on whether to keep him at the start of free agency.
The two-year deal makes Kelce the highest paid tight end in the NFL heading into a season in which he’ll turn 35. It’s also, truth be told, not that big of a number. He’s making less, in fact, on an APY (average per year) basis than Cleveland Browns WR Jerry Jeudy. Which is to say everything is relative, and in that sense a great tight end is a much better deal in today’s NFL than is a good receiver.
• As happy as the Minnesota Vikings were to get J.J. McCarthy where they did with the 10th pick, I’d say they were more surprised that pass rusher Dallas Turner slipped as deep into the teens as he did, which prompted the reaction from Kevin O’Connell that the team’s in-house crew captured.
In the end, they got two guys who were projected in the top 10 in a series of trade-ups without giving up an additional first-round pick to do it. The downside? It comes in volume. They wound up with seven picks after coming in with nine, and none of those picks came on Day 2 (they had one pick between 17 and 177, and that was at 108). As it stands now, they will have only four picks next year—their own first-rounder, a third-round compensatory pick for Kirk Cousins, their own fifth-rounder, and another fifth-rounder they acquired in the Za’Darius Smith trade.
• With the deadline Thursday, we know that nine of the top 12 picks in the 2021 draft have had their fifth-year option picked up. The three that haven’t, and won’t, are all quarterbacks who have been traded—Zach Wilson, Trey Lance and Justin Fields.
The teams that took those three certainly felt the pain of the misses, but each has recovered nicely. And throw Mac Jones in there, and you have four of five first-round quarterbacks from that year’s class dealt, without a single Day 1 or Day 2 pick included in any of the four trades.
• Interestingly enough, only six of the remaining 22 first-rounders from that year have had their fifth-year options picked up.
• Ezekiel Elliott showed last year with the New England Patriots that he can still play. That said, the Dallas Cowboys can’t run him the way they did in Elliott’s previous stint. I was pretty surprised, as such, that the Cowboys didn’t use one of their eight picks on the position, though they do think highly of Rico Dowdle and Deuce Vaughn.
• It wasn’t a huge surprise that the New York Giants punted on quarterback with Drake Maye three picks before their first-round selection at No. 6—word circulated around the NFL that New York had become a Maye-or-no-QB team over the couple of weeks leading up to the draft. And since they did offer their 2025 first-rounder to get to No. 3, you can see New York saw a gap between the top three and the next three in the class.
• As for how the teams had the guys ranked, the Vikings really dove in on the guys after the top two, and had Maye (for whom they offered 11, 23 and a 2025 first-rounder, with pick swaps favoring them bringing some value back), then McCarthy. The Falcons had Michael Penix Jr. behind Caleb Williams and Jayden Daniels (with a few folks in their building personally having Penix second). And Denver had Nix behind only Williams and Daniels.
Latu could be a huge get for the Colts if his neck in healthy.
Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports
• I can appreciate the video of Colts GM Chris Ballard saying the Indianapolis Colts got the draft’s best pass rusher in Laiatu Latu. Most people, maybe all, I talked to about the UCLA star before the draft told me his tape was the best among the pass rushers. But that’s not the question with Latu; it’s the condition of his nick. But if he’s healthy? Paired with DeForest Buckner in that front, look out.
