Caleb Williams has a habit of making us \u2014 the NFL world \u2014 uncomfortable. He doesn\u2019t care about optics. He doesn\u2019t waste thought on what the average NFL fan (or GM or coach) might think. He reacts authentically. He\u2019s sensitive. He feels. He hurts \u2014 publicly. You don\u2019t see that often in the NFL. You don\u2019t see that enough, frankly. Think back to when he sought out his mother to cry in her arms at USC. Think back to when he used to let his mother paint his nails. Think back to that photoshoot where Williams was sitting in a \u2014 how to put this? \u2014\u00a0vulnerable position. And, of course, think back to Sunday when he sat on the injury cart and pumped his fist with tears in his eyes. That\u2019s the incident that\u2019s all over social media. You can guess by now: I don\u2019t have a problem with it. And it\u2019s hilarious to watch people crying on social media with criticisms about \u2026 another man crying. But it\u2019s no surprise. Hypocrisy isn\u2019t hard to find on X, Instagram or TikTok. The criticism is getting absurd. The memes \u2014 well, some of them are objectively funny. The silliness is fair, now that we know\u00a0he could play again in Week 3. This is 2026. Williams isn\u2019t just a public figure \u2014 he\u2019s the NFL\u2019s rising superstar, fed to fans all offseason through the media and\u00a0Madden hype. He has opted into some of that, but not all. (The Bears and Williams, for example, declined a one-on-one interview when I visited camp this summer, in part because the buzz was going too far.) After putting up 59 points in Week 1, this was the most anticipated matchup of Week 2. When he does something objectively theatrical, people will respond with good-natured jokes. But the genuine pearl-clutching and hand-wringing? The idea that the injury cart is somehow sacred and reserved only for career-ending injuries? Get out of here. Let\u2019s go back to the play where the injury happened for context. Trying to escape a sack late in the fourth quarter, Williams slid. He held\u00a0his hamstring and screamed, captured clearly by the broadcast. He banged the turf with his fist in frustration. The team got out the cart, and \u2014 this part you\u2019ve surely seen \u2014 he covered his face with a towel, eventually pulling it away to show his red, watery eyes. He pumped the air, like he was Kobe Bryant after tearing his Achilles. This is high drama worthy of reality television. But folks, I hate to break it to you. The NFL\u00a0is reality television. The NFL is all about its drama. It\u2019s no mystery why\u00a0Madden wanted to put Williams on its cover. He\u2019s fascinating on and off the field. He\u2019s a great football player. But he\u2019s also unique. And it\u2019s this sensitivity that \u2014 I think \u2014 makes him different than the average NFL player, coach or fan. I can see why Williams was upset. It\u2019s not all that different than the last time we saw him publicly crying after that big loss at USC. It was the sheer disappointment of a missed opportunity. He was on the 6-yard line \u2014 just a handful of yards away from a go-ahead touchdown. In an ugly game. Against a division rival. If he and the Bears had scored, no one would have cared that the Vikings won the X\u2019s and O\u2019s and stymied what was supposed to be a historic Chicago offense. That\u2019s a tough thing for an injury to take away. We also have no idea what that injury might have felt like \u2014 the level of pain. But I\u2019m sure everyone can relate to a disappointment of this magnitude. The season looked so promising, even in that ugly game. For the rest of the fourth quarter, it looked like Williams\u2019 season might be in jeopardy. Williams had to reconcile with his game \u2014 and his season \u2014 ending in major disappointment. Then we got the first sign of good news. “I’m actually happy it’s nothing with the knee. That was my first inclination,” coach Ben Johnson said during a postgame press conference. “But yeah, the hamstring could be pretty damaging as well. So, we’ll see how bad it is tomorrow and we’ll go from there. \u2026 We need the points desperately at that point. It’s a shame.” Now here\u2019s a criticism that I\u2019ll buy: Williams\u2019 theatrics distracted the team\u2019s focus at the game\u2019s most crucial moments. “Everybody wants to keep morale up,” Bears defensive lineman Grady Jarrett told reporters after the game. “Because Caleb is the guy here, and so nobody wants to see him go down. Definitely have got to rally up, do more. We\u2019ve got to finish the game at the end of the day.” It\u2019s a bit hypothetical for my taste to wonder if the Bears would’ve won if Williams hadn\u2019t taken the cart, hadn\u2019t pumped his fist and didn’t have tears in his eyes? If the answer is yes, then the Bears have to examine their team-wide focus before examining Williams\u2019, because one man\u2019s tears should not leave the other 47 players without resolve. Football is a sport where toughness is \u2014 quite literally \u2014 on a player\u2019s scouting report. Obviously, this series of events left us questioning Williams\u2019 toughness. But bigger than that, if Williams is a superstar and he isn\u2019t “tough,” can he be successful in the NFL? The way I see it: The tears don\u2019t matter. The hamstring injury does. If there was a way for Williams to play through the injury, then there\u2019s a problem there, because his departure worsened their chances. If there was no way for Williams to get back on the field, then what are we arguing about? The manner that he left the field? Again, get out of here. Let\u2019s all take this opportunity to take a deep breath and try to get comfortable with seeing a grown man cry. From my vantage, that\u2019s what this is about. People don\u2019t like seeing their quarterback cry. I\u2019m not one of them. I\u2019m all for it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Caleb Williams has a habit of making us \u2014 the NFL world \u2014 uncomfortable. He doesn\u2019t care about optics. He doesn\u2019t waste thought on what the average NFL fan (or GM or coach) might think. He reacts authentically. He\u2019s sensitive. He feels. He hurts \u2014 publicly. You don\u2019t see that often in the NFL. You<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlinebettingnewyork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33715"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlinebettingnewyork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlinebettingnewyork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlinebettingnewyork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/onlinebettingnewyork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33715\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlinebettingnewyork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlinebettingnewyork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlinebettingnewyork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}