The 2026 NFL Draft just wrapped, and the Bears spent it building a fortress around Caleb Williams.

They grabbed Iowa center Logan Jones in the second round, added blocking tight end Sam Roush in the third and drafted LSU speedster Zavion Thomas—a 4.28-second 40 guy—to give Williams a legitimate deep threat.

The message from Ryan Poles was unmistakable: this franchise is built around its quarterback, and it intends to keep him upright.

The timing feels right to revisit why. Because before any of those rookies arrive, before training camp, before the Bears chase what they’ve been chasing since 2011, it’s worth remembering exactly what Williams did last season to earn all of this investment.

Through 637 dropbacks, Williams threw for 3,942 yards, 27 touchdowns and just seven interceptions, according to ProFootballReference.com, leading the NFL with seven game-winning drives.

He took the Bears to their first divisional round appearance in more than a decade. He did it as a sophomore.

And he did it with throws that made football fans—even fans of other teams—stop scrolling and watch again.

Here are the five best of them.

Down 41-42 with 25 seconds left and the Bengals riding the energy of an onside kick recovery they had absolutely no business recovering, Chicago was cooked. The Bengals had just scored on a wild Andrei Iosivas touchdown. The building was loud. The situation was impossible.

Williams didn’t care. He dropped back to the Bears’ own 35-yard line, with the poise of someone who didn’t see the score, and zipped a dart 30 yards across midfield to rookie tight end Colston Loveland—who then did the rest, bouncing off two orange defenders and finding the end zone. Final score: Bears 48, Bengals 42.

This throw comes in at five because, to be fair, Loveland’s broken-field running did a lot of the heavy lifting after the catch. But the ball placement was filthy, and 25 seconds on the clock is not a lot of time to decide you’re going to be heroic. Williams decided immediately.

Down 16-30 to the Ravens in the fourth quarter, no timeouts, no hope, no reason to do anything other than take the knee and think about the flight home. Two Baltimore defenders were racing at Williams from behind. A less stubborn quarterback takes the sack.

Williams dropped back 15 yards, flipped his hips—what coaches call a mortal sin, what Williams calls Tuesday—and launched the ball 30 yards across his body while backpedaling away from a pass rusher. The ball found DJ Moore in stride for a 49-yard gain. The context keeps it at four on this list. The throw itself belongs in a museum.

Cross-body throws across the field, thrown at full extension while moving backwards, are the kind of thing quarterbacks are explicitly taught never to do. Williams posted a 1.4 percent turnover-worthy play rate all season—one of the lowest marks in the league—which makes it funnier that this completely unhinged throw was the cleanest ball he threw all game.

If you’re DJ Moore in this game, you are having the time of your life. The Bears were already up big, already ripping Cleveland apart, and Moore had just scored. The score was 21-3. Any reasonable offense runs the clock out. Williams is not a reasonable offense. 

Rolling out to his right with three Browns rushers tracking him, he left his feet, contorted his body mid-air and threaded the ball through one of the tightest windows you will see at any level of football—between two defensive backs, into Moore’s hands in the end zone for his second score of the afternoon. The Bears won 31-3.

This throw ranks third because of pure degree of difficulty. The fact that it happened in a blowout keeps it from going higher, but be honest: if you were a Browns defensive back and you watched this happen live, directly in front of you, you would have started wondering if you should have studied harder in school.

Bears vs. Packers. Rivalry game. Down 16-9 entering the fourth quarter, Chicago looked dead.

Then came an off-balance touchdown pass to tie it—a throw that nearly made this list on its own—followed by an overtime that started with a Packers fumbled snap. Bears ball at midfield. First and 10.

Williams took the snap, let the play action breathe, cocked the ball and launched a perfectly arced 46-yard pass that descended directly into DJ Moore’s hands in the end zone—while a defender clung to his back.

Pro Football Focus awarded the throw their ultra-rare +2 grade, making it only the 31st throw in PFF history to earn a perfect score—and the first of the entire 2025 season, through 14,837 attempts. It was also named the 2025 NFL Next Gen Stats Moment of the Year at NFL Honors.

Tom Brady, who called the game for Fox Sports, put it at the top of his list of the best throws by any quarterback all year.

“He launches the ball from his own 45-yard line,” Brady said. “Keep in mind, it was about 15 degrees out and there was about a 20-miles-per-hour wind. DJ Moore gets a step on the corner, Caleb throws it back across the field 60 yards in the air. It was an absolutely perfect throw. A moon ball for a walk-off win in Chicago.”

Chicago erupted. The cheese graters came out. Iceman hit his signature sub-zero celebration. It was perfect.

The only reason it isn’t number one: what comes next.

The Bears were down 27-16 in the wild card round. Against the Packers again. After a rally back from 21-3. The clock was disappearing. It was 4th and 8, and Chicago’s season was on the line against the one opponent that had haunted this city for decades.

Williams took the snap and was met by two Green Bay rushers immediately. He sprinted out of the pocket—Packers chasing, time evaporating—and then, as a defender dove at his legs, did the only sensible thing: he jumped. Mid-air, body fully extended, arm cocked, he recreated the Jordan Jumpman silhouette. The ball came out clean and traveled 32 yards downfield to Rome Odunze, who hauled it in for the game-reviving conversion.

ESPN analysts Dan Orlovsky and Booger McFarland, both former NFL players, called it one of the greatest throws they had ever seen.

Head coach Ben Johnson said simply: “He rises to the occasion time and time again. It’s really impressive to see a young player like this be so clutch.”

Without that completion, the season ends.

The Packers remain Chicago’s impossible obstacle. Williams’ clutch-image takes a hit instead of being cemented. That is the weight behind why this is the clear number one—not just the throw itself, but everything riding on it, and the fact that he stuck the landing anyway.

This offseason, Williams told reporters the whole season “wasn’t really anything”—a steppingstone, not a destination. That’s the thing about watching these five throws back-to-back. The city already believed. He’s the only one who thinks he’s just getting started.