Watching the 2025 Chicago Bears play football isn’t for the faint of heart. It’s also not for the reactionary: you would have turned off the Wild Card game at halftime.
The fantasy production for Caleb Williams during the regular season and against the Packers returned high levels of value for us. He’s now thrown multiple TD passes in six straight games and has 10 games with a 10+ yard rush.
Can he keep the good times rolling?
Divisional Round DFS Analysis: Caleb Williams
As good as Williams was this past week, will he remain popular next week?
We’ve got a pair of QBs coming off a bye, and that makes them interesting while Matthew Stafford draws a Bears defense that has allowed four double-digit point quarters over their past three games.
This Rams defense carries with it some upside, but let’s not act as if they’ve been world beaters. In the second half of the season alone …
- Week 10: Mac Jones goes 33-of-39 for 319 yards and 3 TDs
- Week 13: Bryce Young goes 15-of-20 for 206 yards and 3 TDs
- Week 15: Road Jared Goff throws for 338 yards and 3 TDs
- Saturday: Bryce Young throws for 264 yards and a TD with 24 rush yards, TD
What about that scares you?
This Chicago line has impressed for much of the season, and if that sticks, another sparkling performance is possible under the bright lights. Los Angeles blitzes at the second-lowest rate in the NFL, and Chicago’s super sophomore has gained confidence when not blitzed of late.
- Weeks 1-8: 3 TDs against 4 INTs with a 7.9 aDOT
- Weeks 9-WC: 10 TDs against 1 INT with a 9.0 aDOT
To me, that looks like a Ben Johnson offense sinking in at the perfect time. We don’t yet have the DFS pricing because we don’t have all of the matchups, but there is undoubtedly a world in which he leads the main slate in QB points, and I don’t suspect his price tag will reflect that being a reasonable outcome.
Enjoy the ride … paying up for his services this summer is playing with fire at best.
2026 Fantasy Football Ranking Analysis: Caleb Williams
Williams has been special for stretches this season. Even extended stretches. But the job of fantasy managers isn’t to chase what has happened, it’s to project what will.
For young players who splash, that can be a difficult task. How much growth do you take into consideration? How much credit do you give opposing defensive coordinators when it comes to learning from film and constructing a blueprint?
MORE: PFSN’s FREE DFS Lineup Optimizer
The truth on both of those fronts is that we don’t know. We can’t. I’ll bend numbers as we approach draft season and stack up the position in order. Before we get to that point, however, we have to evaluate the elephant in the room.
This “clutch gene” that Williams seems to own.
5 games this season with at least 5.9 fantasy points over the final 2.5 minutes of regulation
No other QB has more than 2 games this season https://t.co/InUzLMaxUE
— Kyle Soppe (@KyleSoppePFN) January 11, 2026
He’s been phenomenal in those “gotta have it” spots this season and was again on Saturday night against the Packers. I’d argue that he’s been too good in those situations.
If you include this weekend, he has six games in which over 19% of his fantasy points have been scored in the final 2.5 minutes of regulation. That’s an absurd rate. He has 75 fantasy points scored with his team trailing in the second half of the fourth quarter, again including the playoffs, the most since 2012, Matthew Stafford for the 4-12 Lions.
The efficiency has been so far off the charts that it’s hard to quantify, and if you’re buying the growth of this team, doesn’t it stand to reason that both its quality and quantity of such opportunities will decline?
Here’s a look at the top 10 QB scoring seasons in such spots from 2020-24 and the numbers they produced the following year.
- 2021 Jalen Hurts scored 72 such points (19.7 the next year)
- Fantasy’s QB5 in 2021, QB1 in 2022
- 2022 Tom Brady scored 71.2 such points (retired the next year)
- 2023 Josh Allen scored 62.2 such points (13.7 the next year)
- QB1 in 2023, QB2 in 2024
- 2021 Justin Herbert scored 61.5 such points (34 the next year)
- QB3 in 2021, QB15 in 2022
- 2020 Carson Wentz scored 58 such points (19 the next year)
- QB20 in 2020, QB15 in 2021
- 2021 Ben Roethlisberger scored 56.3 such points (retired the next year)
- 2024 Geno Smith scored 56.3 such points (27 the next year)
- QB16 in 2024, QB28 in 2025
- 2020 Deshaun Watson scored 55.1 such points (DNP the next year)
- 2020 Kirk Cousins scored 51.7 such points (28.4 the next year)
- QB11 in 2020, QB12 in 2021
- 2023 Russell Wilson scored 51.3 such points (16.8 the next year)
- QB11 in 2023, QB15 in 2024
Perhaps Williams is a transcendent star laying the groundwork for a run that aligns with what Hurts and Allen have given us. It’s within the range of outcomes. However, outside of those outliers, we will be looking at regression next season in an overall sense, and certainly when it comes to these catch-up instances.
This fantasy season, Williams was QB8 on a per-game basis. That included outscoring Jalen Hurts, Jaxson Dart (not the case if you only include his starts), Lamar Jackson, and others. He had eight top 10s for the season, and those big weeks more than offset the seven finishes outside of the top 15 at the position.
But what if not everything works out perfectly? What if the league adjusts to the young rising skill players in this offense instead of assuming that Luther Burden and Colston Loveland are ready to be new-age Tyreek Hill/Travis Kelce?
What if, hear me out, the points at the end of games regress?
If you remove the final 2.5 minutes from Weeks 1-16, not just for Williams, but for all QBs, those finish numbers change to five top 10’s (not eight) and eight outside of the top 15 (not seven).
That’s not a significantly different rate than a disappointing 2025 season from Lamar Jackson or a nice-but-not-league-altering campaign from Sam Darnold.
2026 QB Tiers
2026 Elites
- Josh Allen
- Drake Maye
- Joe Burrow
- Jalen Hurts
2026 Rebounds
- Lamar Jackson
- Jayden Daniels
You don’t have to think that those six will all certainly outscore Williams in 2026, but you can’t deny that they could, and I’d argue that they are all favored to do so.
2026 Toss Ups
- Jaxson Dart
- Justin Herbert
- Trevor Lawrence
- Dak Prescott
Generally speaking, this is the tier where I place Williams. Dart was an asset in a year where he threw three passes to one of the best receivers in the sport. Herbert has a 5,000-yard passing season and now nearly a 500 rushing season on his resume, and the other two have access to elite supporting casts.
As promising as Williams has proven to be, a slight regression on the luck side of things and health fortune for those four could knock Williams outside of the top 10 for the season.
But wait, there’s more. This is a quarterback-driven league, and there are at least seven other names on the list of those who could realistically outscore the franchise signal caller in Chicago. I’ve left Patrick Mahomes (injury), Kyler Murray (team?), and Matthew Stafford (retirement?) out of this discussion, but their respective resumes all suggest that a QB1 season is very possible in 2026. Also on that list …
- Bo Nix
He and Josh Allen are the only QBs with 25+ pass TD and 75+ rush attempts in each of the past two seasons - Jared Goff
The NFL leader in passing yards and passing TDs since 2022 - Baker Mayfield
Five teammates who can spike in any given week - Brock Purdy
The all-time NFL leader in YPA
I’m not saying that Williams is a 2026 bust. He checks a lot of the boxes. But, for me, there are “spend up to acquire” QBs and there are “nice to have if they fall below ADP” options.
Williams is the latter, and in a season in which he led the Bears to the NFC’s 2-seed and, at the very least, the Divisional Round of the postseason, I have a hard time picturing his ADP settling at a level outside of the top-10 at the position where I am comfortable.
