Former Chicago Bears quarterback Vince Evans is rooting for Caleb Williams

CHICAGO – Through the NFL draft, a strong-armed, athletic quarterback arrived from the University of Southern California to help the Chicago Bears.

Caleb Williams?

Well, yes, he fits the description, too.

But long before Williams dazzled Bears fans with his off-schedule plays outside of the pocket and late-game heroics, Vince Evans was at the team’s controls. The first Black starting quarterback in Bears history, Evans will be rooting for his former team Saturday night when it plays host to the Green Bay Packers in the NFC’s wild-card round at Soldier Field.

And from his home in Southern California, Evans will be cheering loudest for Williams, Chicago’s standout second-year signal-caller who took a big step forward this season.

“Oh, man, absolutely I will be, because I’ve been admiring his work so much,” Evans said in a phone interview with Andscape this week. “I’m just so excited about his future. And because of what he’s doing, what he showed this year, the future of the Bears.”

The No. 1 overall pick in the 2024 draft, Williams led the second-seeded Bears (11-6) to their best record in seven seasons. During a 22-16 victory in overtime over the seventh-seeded Packers (9-7-1) in Week 16, Williams rallied the Bears from a 10-point deficit late in the fourth quarter. His six fourth-quarter comeback victories this season were the most in the NFL, and tied Peyton Manning’s record for the most in league history by a first- or second-year passer.

In the process, Williams silenced many of his harshest critics, who after his rookie season said the Bears chose poorly in picking the 2022 Heisman Trophy winner from USC.

Evans thought that talk was bonkers. A member of USC’s 1974 co-national championship team and the MVP of the 1977 Rose Bowl, Evans followed Williams closely during Williams’ time with the Trojans. All Williams needed, Evans said, was time to adjust to the rigors of the NFL – and a head coach with top-notch offensive credentials. In first-year Bears head coach Ben Johnson – who proved his bona fides while coordinating the Detroit Lions’ prolific, high-scoring offense – Williams has the perfect tutor, Evans believes.

“In that first year, for anybody as highly touted as Caleb was, the expectations are so high, as they should be,” Evans said. “But when you look at star quarterbacks taken in the first round, and especially at the very top of the draft, it usually takes some time. You look at someone like Troy Aikman. It took him three, four years before he started to come into his own.

“That’s just the whole maturation process. It’s what a lot of these guys face – and what they have to go through. Caleb was no different. But what you saw, even when he was going through it as a rookie, was his athleticism and his skill set. It was just noteworthy. He was doing things a lot of guys just can’t do in terms of throwing the football.

“Then you bring in Ben Johnson, who has been a great fit for Caleb. He’s getting Caleb to read the defense and stand in the pocket a little bit longer. He’s making first, second and third [reads]. Then if it’s just not there, and the protection is breaking down, he can get out the pocket and make things happen. You can see he’s learning so much. It’s all coming together to help him develop into the quarterback he’s capable of becoming.”

Williams couldn’t agree more.

The quarterback’s bond with Johnson – forged by the rookie head coach’s thoughtful approach – has provided the foundation for Williams’ ascent.

“The constant meetings, the constant communication, his consistency in who he is. He wasn’t on one day and off the next. Or on one week and off. That’s who he’s been. That’s how he’s gonna be,” Williams said at the Bears’ Halas Hall headquarters in Lake Forest, Illinois.

“When you can sit back and realize that’s who somebody is, the respect, the trust, the loyalty grows. Then you go out there on the football field and what he’s saying works. The plays work, and alignments and assignments, [and] that trust and loyalty starts to grow. You build more of that. The bond starts to grow a lot more.”

From their first meeting, Johnson coached Williams hard, and Williams welcomed it.

“Drops, footwork, cadence, plays in the huddle – get ’em out faster,” Williams recalled Johnson drilling repeatedly. “Diagnosing the defense better, faster, getting the ball out. … I can keep going on and on.”

Williams entered a much different NFL than that of Evans, his fellow USC alumnus.

The Bears selected Evans, 70, in the sixth round (140th overall) of the 1977 NFL draft. During that era, quarterbacks were discouraged from leaving the pocket. The run-pass-option element prevalent in today’s game – which would have suited Evans perfectly – was decades away from becoming en vogue.

Evans played seven seasons for the Bears, starting 26 games combined during the 1980 and ’81 seasons. During a 61-7 victory over the Packers in 1980, Evans achieved a perfect passer rating of 158.3, completing 18 of 22 passes (81.8%) for 316 yards and three touchdowns.

Mid-career, Evans spent two seasons in the short-lived United States Football League. He returned to the NFL to play eight seasons as a backup for the Los Angeles/Oakland Raiders, retiring at 40. After his playing days ended, Evans went on to have a successful career as a real-estate developer in Southern California.

Not surprisingly, with the freedom athletic quarterbacks have in today’s NFL, Evans wishes he was still in playing shape.

“To see a lot of these African American quarterbacks be able to really do what they do from an athleticism perspective, in terms of making plays outside of the pocket, man, it’s just so great to see,” Evans said. “And it’s the prototypical thing general managers are looking for nowadays. Unless you’re ‘spying’ the quarterback, which is hard to do [on every play], there isn’t another guy on defense that accounts for an athletic quarterback.

“These guys are bringing a whole new dimension to the game. And Caleb is one of the best at it. There are a lot of guys now with that dual-threat ability who make the most of it. Their teams design their offenses to do that. But with Caleb, excuse me, but he just does it so well. Throwing the ball the way he does on the run, his accuracy on hard throws, just puts a super burden on the defense. … Yeah. I’m looking forward to watching this weekend.”

With Williams working on the field that Evans once called home, the Bears are in a good position to extend their season, Evans believes. Soon enough, we’ll see if Evans is correct.

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