Former NFL linebacker Emmanuel Acho saw Caleb Williams auditioning for the next live-action Disney movie Monday night instead of trying to be a franchise quarterback.
“Caleb, you not a damsel, you not in distress,” Acho said on FS1’s “The Facility” on Tuesday. “We do not feel sorry for you. It is the National Football League. You’re going to get hit hard. You have to get up, you have to play the next play, I, more than anything, feel like control what you can control.
“Do not let anything with a heartbeat beat you and far too often we see with his No. 1 overall pick, what I still believe is generational talent, we are seeing things without a heartbeat like attitude, like toughness, like effort, like emotional maturation in the midst of war, the football game, beat him.”
Acho and others have been quite critical of Williams since his questionable play Monday and his sideline antics during a 30-12 loss to the Vikings that sent Chicago (4-10) to an eighth straight loss.
After being hit hard during the fourth quarter, Williams laid on the bench in an exasperated manner.
Let’s just say you wouldn’t have seen Tom Brady pulling such a move.
ESPN’s Troy Aikman saw it as proof the No. 1 pick was a “defeated guy.”
Acho, who played two seasons for the Eagles, had a more critical reaction.
He believes Williams has been rather dramatic on multiple occasions this season, including Week 12 when Williams took too long getting off the ground and it led to a costly delay of game penalty in a 30-27 home overtime loss to the Vikings.
“Caleb Williams’ body language is starting to become not just concerning but irritating. The game of football, particularly when you’re a rookie, you go from being a king in college to being a peasant, and I believe somebody needs to inform Caleb Williams that you are now the peasant of the National Football League,” Acho said.
“But it’s as if Caleb Williams expects us to feel sorry for him. (Monday) night, during the game, yes, he took a hard hit. We’ve all taken hard hits before. Why you sitting there laying on the bench like somebody’s going to come pick you up? Nobody’s coming to rescue you, Caleb Williams. Nobody is coming to rescue you. You are not a damsel and you are not in distress. You an NFL quarterback. If that would have been (an) isolated incident, I would not have been as perturbed.”
While Williams’ reactions can be dissected and debated, his on-the-field play is not helping his cause.
The former USC star’s season line of 17 touchdowns to five interceptions looks decent, but he has a 48.1 QBR and has thrown for less than 200 yards seven times.
Wiliams completed 18-of-31 passes for 191 yards and one touchdown Monday.
It hasn’t helped that the Bears fired offensive coordinator Shane Waldron and head coach Matt Eberflus, but Williams hasn’t lived up to his draft status.
ESPN’s Dan Orlovsky said on the “Pat McAfee Show” that Williams “hasn’t improved” while the other three first-round quarterbacks to play this year — Washington’s Jayden Daniels, New England’s Drake Maye and Denver’s Bo Nix — have all progressed throughout the year.
He said the Bears’ offseason coaching move will be the “most important hire” in franchise history.
“The stuff that has been the issue or the wart or the concern coming out of school is still very much so the concern,” Orlovsky said. “The playmaking — he’s still a playmaker and he’s not enough of a quarterback right now. What I meant by that is you talk about some of the easy misses, you talk about playing in rhythm, you talk about taking easy completions, seeing the field clean, getting the ball out in rhythm in time, that’s the quarterbacking of the position. He doesn’t do that consistently enough, he didn’t at USC, he’s got four plays a game that five people on the planet are going to make and that is only going to last so long.”
