Bears GM Ryan Poles sees similarities between Patrick Mahomes, Caleb Williams

Patrick Mahomes is always going to haunt the Chicago Bears organization.

They passed on him in favor of Mitchell Trubisky during the 2017 NFL Draft. As you know, Trubisky was one of the biggest busts in Bears history while Mahomes is putting together a Hall-of-Fame resume that could lead to him being considered the greatest of all time. Here we are again in 2024, and the Bears are still looking to get it right at that position.

They have the No. 1 pick in the NFL draft, so they’re faced with a franchise-altering decision: keep Justin Fields and trade the pick or draft USC stud Caleb Williams. General manager Ryan Poles, who was with the Kansas City Chiefs when they drafted Mahomes was asked about Williams at the NFL Scouting Combine. Poles admitted he did notice some similarities between Williams and Mahomes, which should be music to the ears of Chicago Bears fans.

“There’s pieces that are similar,” Poles told reporters this week. “Obviously, the one stands out to everyone is just different arm angles. That’s a unique trait, not a lot of guys can do that.” We have seen Mahomes do whatever he needs to do to win. He can be a gamebreaker or he can be a game manager. Whatever the Kansas City Chiefs need from him, he can do it. If Williams has a similar way of delivering the football as Mahomes, he could be something special.

Poles pointed to co-director of player personnel Jeff King for helping him categorize quarterbacks in two different categories. “There’s artists, and there there’s surgeons,” Poles said, noting guys like Mahomes and Williams are artists because of their creativity (surgeons are guys like Tom Brady and Peyton Manning).

“That’s where they’re similar,” Poles said of Mahomes and Williams. For what it’s worth, Williams believes he’s both artist and surgeon — depending on the situation. “I like to think that when it’s time to be surgical, it’s time to be surgical,” Williams told reporters this week. There’s been many games where it gets late in the game and I’ve ran or scrambled and threw a crazy pass.

That’s being the artist, the magician. And there’s been times where even I hurt my hamstring and couldn’t run, I sat in the pocket the whole time the rest of the game and delivered the ball.” We have seen this part of Mahomes’ game lead to multiple Super Bowl-winning runs. If being an artist is what they have in common, Bears fans have a lot to look forward to if Williams can translate it to the NFL.