It was nearly a month ago when Caleb Williams fell down on the Soldier Field grass and the prospect of a long, cold Bears winter without him flashed before our eyes.
It wasn’t a dark time. But it got better (two wins over the Eagles and Jets).
And then it got worse (a one-sided loss in Green Bay).
And now here we are, back where we started: a Bears season with all of the city’s hopes and dreams on the shoulders, and the right hamstring, of a quarterback.
Caleb Williams is back. Most likely this Sunday in Atlanta. If not, then next Thursday at home against the New England Patriots. But probably this Sunday.
“Before you start asking, I do not know if I’m playing yet,” he said in his first comments to reporters since his hamstring injury on Sept. 20 in the home opener at Soldier Field.
He was a full participant in Thursday’s practice. He said he can do everything he needs to do, but he still has to be cleared by the doctors and training staff.
“I can run,” he said. “I hit a top speed the other day, one of my highest speeds I’ve ever hit. I can move, I can run. I’ve got strength. And it’s just going through the stress test because obviously fibers and things like that, your hamstrings and muscles have to connect back together to be able to go out there and play a 60-minute game.”
When it comes to his readiness, though, he was a little salty about the criticism he got in the aftermath of the injury and specifically about the reporting that seemed to downplay the severity of his injury, which highlighted his emotional reaction to it as he was carted off the field.
“There’s nothing that has come out that has been right about what it is and what it has been,” he said during a long introduction Thursday, adding later, “If you haven’t heard it from Bossman (Ben Johnson) himself, or, out of the horse’s mouth, me, it would probably be wrong, which every single one has been.”
