Bear Digest

The Dark Side to One Glowing Prediction for Caleb Williams

Si.com's Conor Orr has his 100 bold predictions out for this NFL season and sees big things for the rookie Bears QB, but there is one thought expressed that Bears fans won't want to read.

Gene Chamberlain

Will Caleb Williams win NFL rookie of the year or do anything positive in his first season? SI's Conor Orr makes the call.
Will Caleb Williams win NFL rookie of the year or do anything positive in his first season? SI's Conor Orr makes the call. / Kamil Krzaczynski-USA TODAY Sports
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The NFL's six-week offseason could change in the near future if the end of OTAs is adopted.

There isn't much time to enjoy time away from football for players as it stands with the current offseason schedule but does offer a brief pause from the grind for predictions.

Sports Illustrated's Conor Orr has his 100 bold NFL predictions for this season out and in it Bears rookie quarterback Caleb Williams is front and center.

Orr makes a call on rookie of the year in prediction No. 5 and it won't be ruined here by reading this, but can be found here.

However, what will be revealed here are the numbers Orr sees ahead this year for Williams to the delight of fantasy football owners, who are acquiring as much information as possible at this time in anticipation of upcoming drafts. He has two more comments about Williams in prediction numbers 8 and 43.

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Orr sees Williams hitting a mark for touchdown passes achieved by a historically significant passer but also has one other alarming forecast for Bears fans.

Williams, labeled by NFL.com's Dan Parr as the Bears player to root for this season within the NFC, will equal Peyton Manning's rookie total of 26 touchdown passes according to Orr.

Orr doesn't foresee the same total of interceptions for Williams that Manning had, and this will be a relief for Bears fans. That would be a disaster as Manning threw 28 picks.

Instead, Orr says a dozen picks for Williams as he nets 3,727 yards passing and comes close to the team record for yardage (3,838, Erik Kramer, 1995) while easily breaking their ridiculously low rookie TD pass record of 11 set just after World War II started by Charlie O'Rourke in 1942.

"Anyway, Williams has a great weapon set at his disposal and an offensive coordinator in Shane Waldron who really came into his own after the departure of Russell Wilson from Seattle," Orr writes, although there are some Seahawks fans who might and have disputed this on social media.

The really disturbing aspect of what Orr writes about Williams is in prediction No. 43. He predicts Williams will win "...at least seven games."

If the win total is this small and Williams plays a full season, there will be a lot of long faces in Chicago because the roster has been built to contend for a playoff spot this year. And if Williams is going to go off for 3,727 passing yards with 26 TDs and only 12 interceptions, and also hit on 65% completions as Orr predicts, but they only win seven games, then something bad happened with their defense.

And that could only mean one thing for coach Matt Eberflus after this season—more coaching change, something which wouldn't be conducive to Williams' development.

Twitter: BearDigest@BearsOnMaven

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Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

BearDigest.com publisher Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.