One of the NFL’s greatest ongoing debates centers on identifying the best players in league history. Whether discussing the undisputed GOAT or ranking players at each position, everyone seems to have an opinion—including Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams.

Williams was recently asked who he considers the greatest quarterback of all time. While he gave the expected answer for No. 1, he also made a point to name his No. 2 quarterback—a player Bears fans know all too well.

“I mean, (Tom) Brady,” Williams said. “When you go seven Super Bowls it’s hard to…there’s not anybody close. And so it gets hard to debate that. I put Brady as number one,”

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Williams then pointed to the Bears’ longtime rival as his clear-cut second choice: Aaron Rodgers.

“For me, Aaron Rodgers is probably number two.”

There is little debate about who sits atop the quarterback hierarchy in NFL history. After Brady, however, opinions begin to vary. Rodgers consistently appears in top-five and top-10 all-time rankings, and many consider him one of the most talented quarterbacks ever to play the position.

Rodgers has also built one of the most decorated résumés in NFL history. Along with winning Super Bowl XLV, he earned four First-Team All-Pro selections, 10 Pro Bowl nods, and four NFL MVP awards. Bears fans may not enjoy hearing their franchise quarterback praise Rodgers, but it’s easy to understand Williams’ reasoning.

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Ironically, despite playing for Chicago, Williams may never face Rodgers before the future Hall of Famer retires. Last season, the only game Rodgers missed for the Pittsburgh Steelers came against the Bears. Williams led Chicago to a thrilling 31-28 victory over a Steelers team quarterbacked by Mason Rudolph.

All signs point to 2026 being Rodgers’ final season with the Steelers—and potentially the last chapter of his NFL career. While a return in 2027 remains possible, it appears highly unlikely.

Of course, there is one scenario that could change everything: a Bears-Steelers Super Bowl matchup. Such a showdown would be both historic and, frankly, one of the most surprising outcomes imaginable.

Caleb Williams and the Madden Curse are once again part of the conversation after the Chicago Bears quarterback earned the honor of appearing on the cover of the latest NFL video game. The achievement marked a childhood dream realized, but it also revived one of football’s most enduring superstitions.

For more than two decades, players featured on the game’s cover have often found themselves linked to injuries, disappointing seasons or unexpected setbacks. The so-called Madden Curse gained traction through a series of high-profile examples involving stars who struggled shortly after receiving the distinction. While some players experienced significant downturns, others continued to thrive and helped challenge the belief that the cover carried any real consequences.

Quarterbacks have occupied a unique place in the discussion. Several signal callers featured on the cover endured injuries or difficult campaigns following their selection, helping fuel the narrative surrounding the curse. At the same time, other quarterbacks delivered productive seasons and added accomplishments to their résumés, creating a mixed record that makes it difficult to separate coincidence from reality.

Williams enters the spotlight at a critical stage of his development. After an up-and-down rookie season, the former No. 1 overall pick is expected to lead a revamped Bears offense with increased expectations surrounding both his individual growth and the franchise’s future. His selection as the game’s cover athlete reflects both his popularity and the league’s belief that he is one of its emerging stars.

Chicago Bears QB Caleb Williams and the Madden Curse

Being picked as the Madden cover was predicted to be Williams’ worst enemy for next season. This can be seen in a post shared by Onyx on X.

Caleb Williams’ toughest opponent this year will be the Madden Curse pic.twitter.com/2UyIzIBGtJ

— Onyx (@OnyxOdds) June 3, 2026

The attention surrounding the Madden Curse is unlikely to affect how Williams approaches the season. Professional athletes have largely dismissed the superstition over the years, focusing instead on preparation, health and performance. For Williams, the greater challenge will come from meeting expectations in a competitive NFC landscape while continuing to establish himself as a franchise quarterback.

Whether the Madden Curse remains a legitimate concern or simply an entertaining piece of NFL folklore, the debate is certain to continue. Williams now joins a long list of cover athletes, and his performance this season will determine whether his name becomes another chapter in the myth or evidence that the superstition no longer holds any power.

The post What Is the Madden Curse and Should Bears QB Caleb Williams Be Worried? appeared first on Gridiron Heroics.

Williams driver Carlos Sainz admitted the team's disappointing 2026 campaign came as a shock, but said the action plan the team has put in place has restored his faith in the squad.

When Sainz signed for Williams after losing his Ferrari drive, there was clearly no doubt that the move would be a downgrade, at least for a considerable period while Williams embarks on a transformation from an underfunded, antiquated also-ran into a top team to go toe-to-toe with F1's big four.

But while Williams vastly exceeded Sainz's wildest expectations in year one, 2026 has swung the opposite direction with a FW48 car that has been well adrift due to a lack of downforce and excess weight, despite spending most of 2025 focusing on the new regulation changes.

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In public, Sainz and the team have kept the peace, but it is clear - and understandable - that there has been real frustration that the Grove squad isn't making the expected progress after all the emphasis that had been placed on this season and beyond. Williams' move to the front was always going to be a long-term, gradual process, but that didn't make its sudden step backwards less of a shock, Sainz admitted.

"I think we acknowledge that fundamentally even without the weight issue, this car is not good enough for what it could have been or should have been," was Sainz's verdict in Monaco, after he and team-mate Alex Albon combined for only seven points over the first five race weekends.

"Speaking very bluntly this year, we've underdelivered in many, many areas and that's why we've hit a pretty big bump because I think we didn't expect to underdeliver in so many of those areas.

When asked if 2026 tested his faith in his choice for Williams, he replied: "Tested my faith? For sure. When you go from scoring podiums at the end of last year to suddenly being where we were - two seconds off the pace at the beginning of the year - it's a big test of faith or a big shock to the system."

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The 2026 season has been particularly painful due to the stark contrast with an unexpectedly strong 2025, when the team placed fifth in the standings and Sainz took two surprise podiums in Azerbaijan and Qatar. In hindsight, it feels like the team outperformed the real level of its operational capabilities, with it then trying to pull off more than its processes could handle as it developed and built the 2026 car.

"I think last year we over delivered as a team," the Spaniard added. "The FW47 was a good race car with its strengths and weaknesses, but we definitely managed to create a car that was able to score podiums. In my first year with the team, I was not expecting that. I was expecting to maybe be a solid midfield car but not to at [some] races be fighting with Mercedes and Ferrari head-to-head on outright pace. And that probably also raised my expectations for 2026. Then 2026 came and it was almost the opposite."

The biggest topic is now how Williams will respond. Team boss James Vowles has never shied away from the idea that perhaps he has pushed through more systemic change through Williams's organisation than it was able to cope with. But the hope is the 2026 slump has exposed more weaknesses that the team can now address, and which otherwise may have stayed under the radar.

Sainz has likened Williams's situation to the McLaren team from three years ago, an oft-used analogy, when McLaren languished at the back of the grid before making rapid progress.

Carlos Sainz: Williams slump was

"I was the first one to say to James and to the management that it was not expected, but at the same time we had very open and clear conversations of where things started going wrong," Sainz detailed.

"We did a very thorough analysis with some very important members of the team, and I think once we all understood where it had started to go wrong and how, I very quickly realised that it might have actually done good things for the team.

"The road to recovery of a team is never a straight line. The best example is McLaren at the beginning of 2023, they were really far down, and they ended the year on a high and from there came the big progress.

"It propelled some very interesting changes inside the team [in terms of] mentality, changes of approach that were needed that maybe without the bump we would have never changed, and we would have never corrected.

"Thanks to the shock of that bump, James and his team put [in place] a very strong action to correct them, to erase them from the system. That made me recover a lot of faith and belief in the project."

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Meanwhile, more changes to its current car are coming, with Williams trying to strategically let its weight saving efforts coincide with suites of aerodynamic upgrades to spend its resources efficiently.

Next season, Williams is planning to skip a year with the naming logic of its chassis and go straight from FW48 to FW50. That gesture is intended to celebrate the 50th anniversary of its first F1 entry in 1977. Sainz and Albon will also be hoping it coincides with the historic team taking two steps forward instead of repeating 2026's one step back.

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