THE NFL DROOLS OVER JAYDEN DANIELS, AS CALEB WINS WITH BLAH EFFICIENCY

The Bears have reduced Williams to a no-error Kyle Orton, while the Commanders have turned Daniels into the next great quarterback, with fans more excited in Washington than they are in Chicago

     A ghost in the lifeline of Caleb Williams? There are none, quarterbacks splattered and buried in Chicago. Sunday afternoon, he managed efficiency ball — throwing one touchdown pass, handing to D’Andre Swift for another large one, leading four scoring drives and not making a mistake as the Bears beat the Rams. He is not the magical quarterback who won the Heisman Trophy, at least until the front office hires coaches who unleash the power.

     So he won’t win, at this stage of the NFL season, an Offensive Rookie of the Year award trumpeted loudly by Jayden Daniels. Someday, Williams will emerge if he isn’t swallowed by the dregs that destroy passers in the swell of Lake Michigan. For now, he is not a loser, at 2-2, as the Bears remain in some sort of race to reach the postseason behind the 4-0 Vikings of Samuel Richard Darnold, who thinks he’s Sammy Baugh.

     It was Dan Quinn, who coaches Daniels with the Washington Commanders, who mentioned specters. “I definitely understand our fan base has been waiting for the franchise QB, but I also don't want Jayden feeling any ghosts,” he said, “making sure he understands there's only one name on the back of that jersey and that's for him.” The ghosts in D.C. are Joe Theismann, Doug Williams, Sonny Jurgensen, Kirk Cousins … and Baugh. He might blow them all away, with a 3-1 record inspired by his double-spiraled brilliance. For the Bears, Williams only is a back story after winning with a defense led by Jaquan Brisker’s hysterics and an Australian punter named Tory Taylor. You may recall when Williams said on draft night: “Hey, you’re not going to punt too much here.”

     Turns out he does. Thankfully, I guess, during a week when Caleb spoke heartily to offensive coordinator Shane Waldron. “Handled myself appropriately,” he said.

     Meaning? “It’s about us communicating, understanding who we are, what kind of team we’re going to be. Just playing together. We’re about more than one person,” Williams said. “Staying true to it, not being frustrated. Personality and things, it’s important to us as a team. Being aggressive, tough, kicking people’s tails. I think we did well with that. The offensive line, everyone else, we did such a good job. We went out and won the game. Super excited. Super proud of the guys.”

     His team is staying alive as Williams remains competent and coach Matt Eberflus’ defense rules the day. They beat the Rams, 24-18, and beat the Tennessee Titans — in a quirky league where Josh Allen has overtaken Patrick Mahomes as a premier MVP candidate and Aaron Rodgers lost to Bo Nix and the Broncos, while Jalen Hurts (and Nick Sirianni) were trumped by Tampa Bay. Even though Tom Brady spoke out against Baker Mayfield, who said of his Super Bowl-winning predecessor: “Obviously, Tom is different. He had everybody dialed in, in a high-strung environment. I think everybody was pretty stressed out. They wanted me to come in, be myself, bring the joy back to football.”

     Joy? “I thought stressful was not having Super Bowl rings,” shot back Brady, on a day when he said the Bears were “very stealth in their recruitment” before he joined the Buccaneers.

     Said Mayfield, claiming his comments were misinterpreted, somehow: “I think a lot of that got taken out of context, and none of it was personal by any means. It's just what he demanded of the guys, and that's the aura of Tom Brady. And that's what he did to bring a championship here. Nothing personal, but yeah, talking before the game, he's obviously happy for me and he knows the guys.”

     It’s that kind of season, a weirdo, with more field goals and fewer touchdowns and points. If we’re waiting for Williams to be Allen or Mahomes, maybe sit back. And watch Daniels, who threw for one touchdown and ran for another Sunday after a near-perfecto Monday, when he completed 21 of 23 passes for two touchdowns and ran for a second. He has hit his targets on 47 of 53 attempts in a week. He is near the league’s highest levels in passer rating and yards per attempt after a 42-14 victory in Arizona.

     “I don't want to compare him to anybody but him because he's still growing,” said Quinn, “and quite honestly, I can't wait to see who he’s becoming.”

     In Carl Sandburg’s city of big shoulders, Williams looks like a no-error Kyle Orton. That works compared to Justin Fields, who committed too many turnovers and made one in Pittsburgh’s first loss with him as a starter. Caleb remains a victim — and still is — of Waldron, who is so bent on a care-streamlined game plan and is more interested in preserving Williams than letting him fly high. There were times you wanted him to throw-throw-throw and create a lakefront blur. That’s not happening in a Waldron system that finally discovered a running game.

     “It starts with me,” Williams said.

     Actually, it starts with Brisker, who intercepted Matthew Stafford with a minute left after heaving himself into the Hall of Fame quarterback’s face earlier. Waldron writes on paper with a red felt pen. In Chicago, where sports teams lose, they will compare it to blood in October. The Bears have Carolina next week, where Williams might go off, before they play Jacksonville in London and hit road games against Daniels and Arizona. They’ll be no better than 4-4, and I would suggest Williams, Cole Kmet and veteran Marcedes Lewis continue to pepper Waldron for more aggressive play calls.

     In the nation’s capital, Daniels benefits from offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury, who enables the quarterback to have freedom. Williams is hushed by safe plays. Funny how he grew up in D.C. and wanted to play for the Commanders, until the NFL’s draft rules shifted his ambitions. Now, he usually listens in his headset to a run play or a short pass.

     A ghost? Maybe it’s Waldron.

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     Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.