QB Notebook: Caleb Williams Has Erased All Doubts; The QB Teams Should Trade For

Welcome to the Quarterback Notebook, where I’ll cover the past week in NFL quarterbacking — from the most interesting passers, plays and storylines to some other stuff that caught my eye while watching film this week. This week, we’ll bust some narratives about Caleb Williams, check in on Aaron Rodgers’ fight against Father Time, and monitor Jayden Daniels’ development. Let’s talk quarterbacks. The narrative surrounding Caleb Williams’ game has taken many turns since the Bears drafted him first overall in 2024. Before that draft, some evaluators wondered if his playground style would translate to the pro game, and a turbulent rookie season, which included 68 sacks and several This ain’t the Pac-12 moments for Williams, solidified those concerns. Even after Williams rebounded in his second year — with a big helping hand from head coach Ben Johnson — the narrative endured. Skeptics pointed to his high time-to-throw and low completion percentage as proof he still lacked the polish to play at a high level consistently, making him a poor fit in Johnson’s offense. Williams has spent the last two years slowly chipping away at that perception. He’s cut his sack rate in half since his rookie season, and he’s now leading the NFL in completion percentage. That just leaves the ol’ time-to-throw as the last vestige of the pre-draft concerns. Williams’ average dropback lasts 3.24 seconds before the ball is thrown, the highest in the league, per Next Gen Stats. Because timing and quick processing are viewed as hallmarks of NFL quarterback play, a high average time to throw is often considered bad. I don’t think that viewpoint is far off base. Many quarterbacks who struggle to get the ball out on time or throw with anticipation top the time-to-throw leaderboard. But exceptions exist, and at this point, Williams is undeniably one of them. Williams’ performance against the Seahawks’ defense on Monday night should erase any lingering doubts about the sustainability of his success. Williams was the first quarterback to throw for more than 200 yards against Seattle. He completed over 70% of his passes and took only one sack. When the opportunity to unload the ball quickly was there, Williams took it. When the situation called for Williams to improvise, he made plays like this: And this: That last play illustrates why I have no concerns about Williams’ time to throw. He vacates the pocket but only after getting through his progression. And he caps it off by hitting tight end Colston Loveland with a perfect pass while running over 13 mph. The time to throw on that play was 5.49 seconds, which contributed to his 3.29 average on the night. That’s even higher than his season-long average. Now ask yourself: did you leave that game thinking Williams held the ball too long? That same question applies to his other games in 2026. Here’s a cut-up of all 16 of Williams’ “scramble drill” dropbacks this season, per Pro Football Focus. You can count the number of times Williams turns down an open target or leaves a clean pocket on one hand and still have a few free fingers. According to PFF, Williams has scrambled from a clean pocket on 1.8% of his dropbacks, which is lower than most quarterbacks and just 0.1% higher than Matthew Stafford, who’s basically immobile at this point. Chicago’s budding star really leaves the pocket only when he’s forced out — and from there, he becomes one of the league’s most effective playmakers. Williams is supplementing that out-of-structure magic with top-level efficiency within structure. No quarterback averages more expected points added per dropback from a clean pocket. On those plays, Williams’ time to throw drops to 2.72 seconds, which ties him with the Lions’ Jared Goff, the quarterback Williams supposedly needed to be more like to fit in Johnson’s scheme. The Steelers are 6-2 and within striking distance of the AFC’s top seed, but it still feels like the fate of the season hinges on one question: How washed is future Hall of Famer Aaron Rodgers? I shared my opinion back in late September, highlighting a few concerning stats, like Rodgers’ struggles on plays where he’s forced to hold the ball a little longer and his inability to connect on tight-window throws. It looks like defensive coordinators around the league agree with that assessment based on how they’re calling plays against the 42-year-old quarterback. Through eight games, Rodgers has logged a league-leading 110 dropbacks against man coverage, per Pro Football Focus. No other quarterback has more than 65 dropbacks against man. That’s a noteworthy gap. The league’s man coverage rate is down significantly in 2026, mostly because offenses have gotten so good at exploiting it with condensed formations that create leverage advantages for receivers and route combinations that create natural picks on defenders. But against Rodgers, defensive coordinators feel free to crank up their man coverage usage. They haven’t been punished for it yet. I think opponents are choosing to play that way against Rodgers for several reasons. For starters, tight coverage lets defenders disrupt route timing and forces quarterbacks to hold the ball longer. Throwing into tighter windows also narrows the margin for error when it comes to ball placement. And since Rodgers doesn’t pose much of a threat as a scrambler, defenses aren’t worried about turning their backs to the pocket. Rodgers gets worse the deeper he gets into a play; he’s lost the precise ball placement he possessed at the peak of his powers (ranking 31st in PFF’s “plus accuracy” metric); and he’s completely uninterested in leaving the pocket these days. Add all that up, and the man-heavy game plans make a lot of sense. Rodgers’ schematic preferences are also contributing to the abnormally high man coverage rate Pittsburgh is facing. The veteran quarterback has always preferred to play in the shotgun with his receivers spread across the field, which provides a clearer pre-snap picture of the defense. On the other hand, those static spread formations make it harder to exploit man coverage with pick plays and don’t provide the same leverage advantages you get with condensed formations. And Rodgers has never been a big proponent of pre-snap motion, another offensive tactic used to beat man coverage. Maybe Sunday’s win over Cleveland will change his opinion. Two of Pittsburgh’s biggest plays in the pass game came on the same design, with tight end Darnell Washington motioning into a bunch formation that created too much traffic for his defender to navigate. Those were relatively easy throws for Rodgers. The play design got Washington open early, so Rodgers didn’t have to hold the ball. The passing window was wide open, giving him more margin for error. If defenses insist on playing man coverage, the Steelers need to run more of these plays. That will require Rodgers to acknowledge his own limitations, which might be too big an ask for the famously stubborn quarterback. If you’re familiar with Betteridge’s law of headlines, you already know where this is headed. But let me say this: While I have my concerns about Jayden Daniels’ development, I believe his skill set gives him a top-10 ceiling. Whether he can stay on the field long enough to get the reps he needs to reach that ceiling is another question. That’s been the main issue for Daniels, who hasn’t shown significant improvement since his exceptional rookie season and has fallen behind his draft classmates, Caleb Williams and Drake Maye. Daniels’ injury history would be less concerning if scrambling wasn’t such an integral part of his game. Commanders coach Dan Quinn has harped on the need for Daniels to protect himself since his rookie season, but his scrambling rate increased in 2025, and while it’s down a few percentage points in 2026, it’s still among the highest in the league. Daniels also leads the league in scramble rate from a clean pocket, per Pro Football Focus. The gap between Daniels and Kyler Murray, who ranks second, is as wide as the gap between Murray and C.J. Stroud, in 18th place. Highest scramble rates from a clean pocket: Daniels is truly in a league of his own when it comes to abandoning a clean pocket. Many of these scrambles have been productive and have kept Washington’s offense afloat, but the increased injury risk is a major drawback. The scrambling still feels like a bit of a crutch for Daniels. While it’s provided a high floor early in his career, we won’t see the 25-year-old take the next step if it keeps up. That doesn’t mean Daniels shouldn’t lean on his mobility. But it would be easier to remain optimistic about his long-term viability if more of those out-of-structure plays turned into downfield passes rather than runs that expose him to hits. I’ve been itching to write about the Geno Smith renaissance in New York, but the Jets can’t seem to win any of the games he plays well in. And we don’t celebrate losers here at the QB Notebook — unless it’s Justin Herbert, of course. Regardless of the Jets’ record, Smith is putting together a solid bounce-back campaign. He currently ranks ninth in PFF’s grading, and his 14 “big-time throws” rank fifth in the league. Smith also has the eighth-lowest turnover-worthy play percentage, so he’s balanced that big-play hunting with solid decision-making. That combo makes him a sensible fit for offenses that prioritize downfield passing. There are a couple of teams in purple who fit that bill. I’m looking at you, Baltimore and Minnesota. ATTN: Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell and Baltimore offensive coordinator Declan Doyle. We might just have to name this section after Herbert at this point. (Muttering.) The rest of his tape was pretty solid if you just ignore the two horrific interceptions.