USC QB Caleb Williams uses pre-draft leverage to buck tradition

INDIANAPOLIS — Before he explained what he could do in the pros, Caleb Williams explained what he wouldn’t do in the draft process.

The first question fired at Williams during a rare interview Friday came from the back of the horde gathered around his podium at the NFL Scouting Combine. A reporter, screaming, asked why he didn’t want to be compared to his peers in medical evaluations, drills and other measurements.

“Caleb, are you afraid to compete?” the reporter asked.

Williams said he and his support team had simply made a decision. The USC quarterback continued to act like a player with well-deserved leverage when he became the first player to decline medical evaluations at the NFL Scouting Combine. It was the latest unique move by Williams, whose decisions as the clear-cut No. 1 pick have bucked tradition.

Williams doesn’t have an agent, instead relying on an inner circle led by his father Carl. His salary as the top pick is set, so he believes he doesn’t need one.

Williams won’t throw at the Combine on Saturday either, which is part of a recent trend among the top prospects. North Carolina’s Drake Maye and LSU’s Jayden Daniels, who are both expected to be drafted in the top three spots, won’t throw either.

He’ll save his workout for his pro day at USC at March 20.

“I played around 30-something games …” Williams said. “Go ahead and watch real live ball of me and see how I am as a competitor.”

He explained his medical decision, too, saying that he’d participate in examinations given by the teams he’ll visit leading up to the draft. Williams didn’t know how many teams he’d travel to see, but the Bears will be among them.

“Not 32 teams can draft me — there is only one of me,” he said. “So the teams that I go to for my visit those teams will have the medical — and that’s it.”

None of the above are particularly concerning. But it’s clear that the college game’s first Name, Image and Likeness star is positioning himself as an iconoclast in the NFL’s ever-expanding draft industrial complex.

The Bears to need to ask himself whether they’re comfortable with that — and if his play on the field makes him worth it. Signs point toward yes — in three combined seasons at Oklahoma and USC, he threw for 10,082 yards, 93 touchdowns and four 14 interceptions. Additionally, he ran for 966 yards and 27 scores.

There were standard questions Friday: about Williams’ height, which he estimates between 6-1 and 6-2 (“I’m around Aaron Rodgers’ size — and maybe weight too”) and how he handled a 7-5 record at USC last season (“The cool thing about my experiences that all three years have been a bit different”).

Other questions get weird. Williams has been criticized in some circles for painting his nails for games and for crying in the arms of his family after a loss to Washington. Asked about the latter Friday, Williams didn’t apologize for caring.

“There are not many people in the world that get to experience what I experience every game day, every practice day,” he said. “So it kind of goes back to that for me — it’s something that I only get to experience. It’s something that I really care about — which is not only winning the game but doing it with my teammates. Every time we lose, I feel like I let my teammates down.”

He did not conduct interviews after his last USC game, which was a loss to rival UCLA, or during the team’s lead up to the Holiday Bowl, which he watched from the sideline. He waited until the deadline to apply for the draft and then released a statement.

Williams gave an interview to ESPN earlier this week specifically to say he’d be willing to play for the Bears, his hometown Commanders or anyone else who drafted him. He smiled when talking about the Commanders on Friday, saying “it would be really cool to be back there and experience” playing near his home, but praised Chicago, too.

“Y’all rarely see me speak, ever,” he said. “As you all know, I don’t really go out and speak much but this was important to me that I wanted to put something out before I came [to Indianapolis], especially with all the noise and things like that that have been brewing.”

Some thought he pushed back on rumors he’d rather not go to Chicago a month ago, when he posted an Instagram photo of himself as a child wearing a T-shirt with a cartoon bear on it.

Not the case, he claimed.

“It was not intentional,” he said. “I didn’t t see the bear on the front. But it was kind of funny when I saw the reports on that.”