Derrick De Leon

[Chicago Bears @ChicagoBears]

Keeping receipts 🧾

[George Jarjour @GeorgeOnTap]

Caleb Williams has been getting clowned for his reaction to what looks like a week to week hamstring injury. I'm going to admit it’s kind of funny. The quarterback who got labeled soft for crying in his mom's arms at USC cried again, on a cart, over a hamstring that may not cost him more than a few weeks.

Fans spend athletes' entire careers demanding they show how much they care, and when one of them shows it in a way we didn't ask for, we turn him into a punchline. Bears fans should know this better than anyone, because their last franchise quarterback got destroyed for the opposite reason.

Williams heard all of this before he was ever drafted. In November 2023, after USC lost to Washington, he climbed into the stands and sobbed on his mother's shoulder. Robert Mathis called it soft. OutKick ran a column saying it proved he wasn't ready for the NFL, and plenty of people used it as the reason Chicago should pass on him with the first pick. His answer then was that it was raw emotion and that it's who he is, and he has never walked it back.

That last franchise quarterback was Jay Cutler, and his whole reputation in Chicago was that he looked like he didn't care. The internet called him Smokin' Jay, and his body language after interceptions turned into its own genre of highlight. In the NFC Championship Game in January 2011, he hurt his knee against the Packers and spent the second half standing on the sideline and riding the exercise bike, with no towel and no tears. Players around the league went after him on Twitter while the game was still going. Deion Sanders said in the playoffs you'd have to drag him off the field. Mark Schlereth said it would take a stretcher to get him out of a championship game. Cutler had a sprained MCL. Chicago spent eight years begging its quarterback to show some emotion, and now it has one who can't hide it.

Michael Jordan might be the most competitive person who ever played a sport, and the most famous picture of him on the internet is him crying at his Hall of Fame induction in 2009. It's been a meme for more than a decade, and people post it every time somebody loses.

Cam Newton got criticized in 2015 for dancing and dabbing too much while the Panthers won. A few months later he got called a sore loser for giving one-word answers and walking out of his press conference after Super Bowl 50. The same critics had a problem with how he acted after winning and after losing, four months apart.

Fans accept anger from athletes as proof they're competing: a fist pump, screaming at a lineman, a helmet slammed on the bench after a loss. Crying after a loss or after an injury gets treated as weakness, and I have never heard anyone give a good reason why one counts as caring and the other doesn't.

If you don't want a franchise quarterback who can't hide it when his hamstring gives out on the way to the end zone, the alternative is the one who jogs off after a pick-six like he's got a tee time. Fans call that guy the one who doesn't care, which is probably the most common insult in sports, and I've never heard a fan say out loud that they'd take him.

Williams is week to week. The Bears play the Eagles next Monday night.

[jack @jack_bfr]

Here’s a clip of Gronk’s injury in 2015 that ended up being a Grade 1 knee strain.

He pounded the ground, rolled around, and yelled for 2 minutes. He only missed ONE game.

This was your reaction, @stoolpresidente.

[Joey @CalebGoatQB1]

Hitler, Saddam, Netanyahu, Roush

[Chicago Bears @ChicagoBears]

We are SO back 😏

[Fuck Every 𝐗 Account @fuckeveryacount]

Fuck @packers

[JustFreshKicks @JustFreshKicks]

This pic goes hard.

[San Antonio Spurs @spurs]

1 of 1

[BIGMEM12 @BIGMEM12]

Dunking on the player who raised the MVP you wanted right in front of you and your biggest rival since you were 16 at the same time.

This is the greatest picture of all time.

[Ballislife.com @Ballislife]

Wemby ruined SGA's MVP trophy night with 41 PTS (9 in double OT), 24 REB, 3 BLK, and the W!

41 POINTS & 24 REBOUNDS!!!!!

[Nike Basketball @nikebasketball]

A dominant presence walks this planet. Here's proof.

@wemby is your first-ever unanimous Kia NBA Defensive Player of the Year.

[Bleacher Report @BleacherReport]

Ben Johnson and Caleb Williams in their first season together 🔥

NFC North Title
No. 2 seed
First playoff win since 2010
Beat the Packers twice 😏

Future is bright in Chicago 🐻

[Capt. Caleb Williams @CaptCSWilliams]

Mother—

Victory hath been secured! The antidotes distributed to the public for lactase in the water supply proved vital in the waning moments.

A civilian secured a dairy-shredding device amidst the height of battle.

The knees of the enemy are bent.

Good. Better. Best.
—CW

[NFL @NFL]

CALEB TOO COLD... AGAIN 🥶

[PFF @PFF]

Never count out Caleb "Iceman" Williams 🧊

[SportsCenter @SportsCenter]

ICEMAN IN THE CLUTCH 🥶

Caleb Williams and the Bears take the lead!

(via @ChicagoBears)

[JPA @jasrifootball]

THIS IS WHAT THE BEARS DO

[NFL @NFL]

Ben Johnson is all business... until he's in the winning locker room 🗣️

@insidetheNFL Week 7 Mic'd Up on X