It's official. Kliff Kingsbury is headed to Washington to serve as the Commanders' offensive coordinator under new head coach Dan Quinn, fueling rumors about where projected No. 1 draft pick Caleb Williams could end up.
Kingsbury spent the past season with Williams at USC as a senior offensive analyst and quarterbacks coach. With Williams being native to Washington, D.C., it sure seems like a great landing spot for the 2022 Heisman Trophy winner.
Standing in their way, though, are the Chicago Bears. And while the Commanders could certainly make a play for the star quarterback, ESPN's Adam Schefter told Pat McAfee that the rest of the league is operating under the general assumption that the Bears will take Williams with the No. 1 overall pick this year.
Stay in the game with the latest updates on your beloved Chicago sports teams! Sign up here for our All Access Daily newsletter.
"There are a few issues with this," Schefter said of Washington's hypothetical interest in trading for the Bears' pick on the "Pat McAfee Show" on Monday. "Number one, are the Bears going to be willing to move on from taking Caleb Williams, which I believe seems to be the widespread consensus around the league: that Caleb Williams will be the No. 1 pick. And if they are willing to move on from him, then [the Bears] have to like either Drake Maye or Jayden Daniels enough — or Justin Fields.
"But again, the feeling around the league seems to be that they'll wind up trading Justin. Whether or not they do, we'll see, but that seems to be the feeling."
The Kingsbury hiring comes just days after Williams' camp was forced to cool off a rumor that the quarterback doesn't want to play for the Bears. Schefter, too, pushed back on the notion that Williams would be able to manipulate his landing spot.
Bears News
"No NFL team is ever gonna allow itself to be pushed around," he said. "And is he even gonna do something like that? We don't know."
Schefter also noted that it's unlikely Williams would try to pull a John Elway or Eli Manning without an agent, which he currently does not have.
"I think that will be a tell-tale sign," Schefter said. "If all of a sudden, we hear in late-March, early-April that Caleb Williams is hiring an agent when he didn't have one... Oh, boy."