Caleb Williams is officially under contract.
Tuesday brought multiple reports that Williams had signed with the Bears, but the quarterback and the team were actually still hammering out some final details of the pact. That process has come to an end and the Bears announced Williams’s signing with a picture of the first overall pick putting his name on his four-year contract. The deal is worth $39.4 million with a $25.5 million signing bonus.
Williams’s contract comes with a team option for a fifth year and PFT reported that one of the points the two sides talked about during the process was Williams’s desire to have a clause barring the Bears from using the franchise tag for a sixth year. The Bears declined, however, and Williams’s deal will be the standard one.
The timing makes Williams one of the final 2024 draft picks to sign his first NFL contract, but it didn’t keep him from missing any practice time during training camp and it’s hard to imagine anyone in Chicago thinking too much of the delay once Williams is on the field running the offense.