Bears cornerback Jalen Johnson clarified a comment he made about Caleb Williams before the draft that many people interpreted as criticism.
In an appearance on "Up & Adams" in March, Johnson suggested Williams might be high-maintenance and could bring a "big man on campus" attitude to the locker room.
"You just humble yourself coming into the building," cornerback Jaylon Johnson said on "Up & Adams" in March. "You can't bring that Hollywood stuff into the building especially with guys who have played the game at a high level for consecutive years -- myself, Tremaine [Edmunds], TJ [Edwards], Keenan Allen. We going to see through that. What you did in college, the Hollywood, it's like nah, you gotta prove yourself. That stuff, like, that doesn't matter.
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"You gotta get to know him, too. I think there's a fine line between trying to prove a point to him but you also gotta get to know him. Because at the end of the day, we want him to be the absolute best he can be. That's what we're bringing him in for to win games. I think truly just learning who he is as a person and learning him deeper than all the Hollywood stuff you see, but actually trying to learn and get to know him and then knowing from there what pushes him. If it is trash talk, if trash talk makes him crumble, then I mean, I feel like we gotta push that button because people in the game, they're gonna push that button. Depending on whatever it is that he needs to be pushed at, that's our job and that's our duty as his teammates to make him better to strengthen his weaknesses."
The Bears went on to select Caleb Williams with the No. 1 overall pick in last week's NFL Draft, but Johnson insists Williams texted him before the draft to assure his soon-to-be teammate that he's focused on winning.
"That conversation [on Up & Adams] was took completely the wrong way," Johnson told "Parkins and Spiegel" on The Score. People, to me, just wanted to clickbait and didn't even take into consideration the whole context of the damn conversation.
Johnson said the radio host, Kay Adams, was the one who brought up the "he's Hollywood" narrative, and he was simply responding to her hypothetical scenario.
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"He texted me and we had talked to each other a little bit and we just kind of clicked, but I cleared the air," Johnson said. "He hit me and was like, 'Hey, I'm a winner, I just want to win.'
"We had that conversation. I'm like it's all good. Then I talked a little trash about Utah and USC, and it was all good."