Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams won’t have to wonder whether the head coach on the opposing sideline respects his game when his team hosts the Minnesota Vikings for a divisional clash at Soldier Field in Week 2.
During a local radio appearance on September 15, O’Connell showered Williams with eye-opening praise while talking about the challenge that his team will face on Sunday in trying to keep the former No. 1 pick from breaking contain and making his plays.
“Oh, he’s so talented,” O’Connell said Tuesday on KFAN 100.3’s The Paul Allen Show.
“With Caleb, it doesn’t matter whether it’s right, whether it’s left. He’s got such athletic ability to then make all the throws. I mean, you can just go back to the Rams playoff game, that heave that he threw up there. And really, in that offense, the way they space the field, the type of targets that he has — whether they’re receivers, tight ends, [D’Andre] Swift out of the backfield — they all are capable of making huge plays, and that’s on-schedule. So then you start talking about the off-schedule plays that Caleb can do, and it’s an absolute challenge.”
Vikings Aiming to Make Caleb Williams ‘Uncomfortable’
O’Connell didn’t lay out the schematics for how the Vikings plan to best Williams in Week 2, but he did emphasize that the goal is to make him feel “uncomfortable” in the pocket — largely because of how badly he can make them pay when he escapes.
“Multiple times over the last couple of years, we’ve had him kind of dead to rights in the pocket, and he’s able to get out and steal a first down or make an explosive play happen,” O’Connell said. “And they’re back-breaker plays because you’ve done everything right. You’ve gotten them into a third-and-longer situation. You did contain him, but just one little bad angle, one little aggressive level-off of a rush, we call it, and he gets out, and it’s gonna be a problem.
“So we’ve got to make sure we keep him in there. We’ve got to make sure we make him uncomfortable and see if we can take the ball off these guys. Because they were really, really good a year ago at winning the turnover battle, and they’re really hard to beat when they do that.”
A similar plan to Week 1’s could potentially have that effect on Williams.
According to Next Gen Stats, the Vikings blitzed Green Bay Packers quarterback Jordan Love on 78.3% of his dropbacks in Week 1’s victory, resulting in four sacks and 15 hits — or 18 hits by the measurement of Packers offensive coordinator Adam Stenavich.
If they do the same against Chicago, Williams could have a tougher day.
Caleb Williams Has Lost 3 of 4 Matchups With Vikings
O’Connell has clear respect for Williams’ abilities, but Williams and his Bears have not had much success against O’Connell’s Vikings in his first two seasons in the league.
Williams lost each of his first three career matchups with the Vikings, including a season-opening collapse to kick off 2025. The Bears won the second matchup of the season in November, but their quarterback didn’t play his best game, completing exactly half of his passes (16-of-32) for 193 yards with no touchdowns and one fumble.
Williams looked like a quarterback who has taken the next step in Week 1’s win over the Carolina Panthers, though. He went 21-of-29 passing for 269 yards, carried the ball 10 times for 65 yards and scored four total touchdowns. He also put more off-schedule and evasive plays on tape that O’Connell can both appreciate and loathe.
There is also a highly anticipated play-calling chase match on tap between Ben Johnson and Brian Flores. Williams can control what he can control, but he will need his head coach to bring his best offensive game plan to the table to have his best shot.
The Bears will kick off against the Vikings at 1 p.m. ET on Sunday, September 20.
Bears QB Caleb Williams Gets Eye-Opening Praise From Kevin O’Connell