Just How Great of a Prospect Is Caleb Williams?
He’s not quite earned the “generational” tag—at least not yet—but Williams’s playmaking talent makes him one of the best NFL draft prospects in recent memory. As teams fall out of the playoff hunt, the crown jewel of the 2024 class looks worthy of every bit of the hype.
We’ve reached an inflection point in the NFL season at which a certain segment of fans start to shift their focus to next year. For supporters of the league’s cellar-dwelling teams—particularly those without an answer at the quarterback position—salvation comes through the NFL draft. And hope for the future takes the shape of one player in particular: USC’s Caleb Williams.
A lot of things can change between now and late April, of course, but it’s already widely accepted that the reigning Heisman winner is all but a lock to be next year’s top overall pick. The term “generational” gets thrown around a little too much, and I’m not quite ready to use that on Williams just yet, but it’s clear that the Trojans signal-caller brings both the rare physical skill set and statistical résumé to stack up with some of the most highly touted quarterbacks of the past two decades—from Andrew Luck to Trevor Lawrence, Cam Newton, Joe Burrow, and Matthew Stafford.
So whether you’re just now tuning in to see what all the Caleb Williams fuss is about, or simply looking for a refresher on what makes him such a high-level prospect, let’s dig into the numbers and tape of a guy who’s being touted as the NFL’s next great quarterback.
Williams came into this season—and into college in general, really—with an enormous amount of hype. A five-star recruit out of Washington, D.C., Williams broke onto the college scene as a true freshman in 2021, supplanting another five-star recruit in Spencer Rattler as Oklahoma’s starter midway through the season. After leading the Sooners to a 5-2 record as a starter (finishing with 1,912 passing yards and 21 touchdowns while throwing just four interceptions), he followed head coach Lincoln Riley to USC that offseason, then quickly established himself as one of the best quarterbacks in the country for the Trojans. He earned consensus All-American honors and won the Heisman Trophy in 2022 as a sophomore, passing for 4,537 yards and 42 touchdowns and throwing just five interceptions while adding another 382 yards and 10 scores on the ground. Along the way, he’s earned Patrick Mahomes comparisons, thanks in part to his ability to make Houdini-like escapes from the pocket and produce astounding, off-platform throws to open receivers downfield.
This year, Williams is somehow living up to that supernova hype. Through six games, he’s passed for 1,808 yards and leads the country with 22 touchdown passes (with just one pick), with an additional six touchdowns on the ground. He’s a big-play merchant, and ranks second among 131 quarterbacks with 100-plus dropbacks in yards per attempt (10.9), per Pro Football Focus. He’s done all that while remaining highly efficient, completing 71.4 percent of his passes (tied for 14th). And despite the team’s obvious deficiencies on defense, Williams has led USC to a perfect 6-0 record.
As for the tape, the first and most obvious trait that jumps off the screen is Williams’s arm strength. The Trojans playmaker can whip a throw into a tight window when he needs to and shows the ability to generate velocity even when throwing off-platform or without setting his feet. He’s not just a one-speed thrower, though. Williams has several pitches at his disposal, flashing the touch to drop a pass into a bucket over a defender.
Williams is very accurate on the move, not just hitting his open receiver, but regularly putting the ball in exactly the spot that leads his target away from defenders or gives them a chance to turn upfield and pick up yards after the catch.
This touchdown throw, which came early in USC’s wild win over Colorado, demonstrates Williams’s extraordinary upper-body torque; running to his left, he’s able to twist his torso and uncork a frozen rope about 30 yards downfield.
Williams’s tape is littered with these types of absurd throws, and while I understand the danger in comparing him to the best quarterback alive, I actually do get where the Mahomes comps are coming from. For starters, he’s around the same size and build as Mahomes. And he kinda moves like Mahomes. But it goes deeper than that; like Mahomes, Williams brings an uncanny ability to diagnose coverages and seems to always know where everyone is on the field at any given time. And like Mahomes, he draws on his natural arm talent to get rid of the ball in the blink of an eye, even when it seems like a play is already dead. Whether it’s a sidearm throw that puts the ball around a defender or a jump pass that miraculously arrives at its target, Williams has produced a highlight reel of wild, Mahomesian throws over the past few seasons.
Williams’s out-of-structure creativity and unbelievable talent for getting himself out of pickles is Mahomes-like, too. More than anything else right now, Williams is defined by his sandlot improvisational style; and he seems to be at his most comfortable when a play completely breaks down.
That’s not to say that Williams can’t play in structure. I am impressed by his overall feel for the pocket. Most of the time, he’s trying to hang tough in the face of pressure and run the play; he’s shown the ability to feel defenders before they arrive, strafing or climbing up to buy himself a little bit of time. He’s also underrated for how strong he is, and has shown the ability to shrug off would-be tacklers to keep himself upright and looking downfield.
That strength and toughness show up when he scrambles or keeps the ball on designed run plays, too (and that was apparent when he basically trucked a defender and carried him over the goal line in last week’s win over Arizona). He’s no Lamar Jackson, but he can scoot a little bit in the open field, and his balance and body control as a runner help him to dodge, duck, and dive around big hits. He rarely takes contact head-on, which is exactly what you want to see in any quarterback.
The most top-level takeaway I’d have from going through Williams’s tape is also probably one of the highest compliments one can pay: This dude is just a good football player. He’s a natural. He sees the field. He’s always poised and calm. He never panics. It looks like things come easily to him, even when things get hard. Especially when things get hard.
But I can also see Williams’s style as a quarterback inevitably creating some controversy once draft season rolls around. Players like Mahomes—and Russell Wilson and a handful of other out-of-structure geniuses—have laid the foundation in the NFL for the way that Williams likes to play. But there are still coaches in the league who want their quarterback to play on time. Who want their quarterback to hit his back foot and get the ball out. Who want their quarterback to run the play as it’s drawn up. That’s not really how Williams plays, at least not right now.
There are times when I found myself getting a little frustrated that he wasn’t pulling the trigger on a throw. And one talking point I expect to hear come draft season is that he’s not always going to benefit from sitting in a clean pocket for what feels like forever, like he often does at USC. Everyone, and everything, is faster in the NFL. And Williams is almost surely going to have to speed up his process.
Still, it’s impossible not to get excited. Williams brings a level of talent that can transform a franchise and the skill set to thrive as both a passer and runner. The Caleb Williams sweepstakes is going to be something to behold, and a quick glance at the NFL’s current draft order shows the Bears as well positioned to win that contest (they would have the first and second picks in the draft if the season ended today). But there are a lot of games left to be played—and every game, and every play, brings potentially massive sliding-door events. For the league’s bad teams, every win and, more important, every loss, will matter. And after watching all of Williams’s snaps over the past two years, it’s not something decision-makers should be taking lightly. Just ask the Jets.
