Lincicome: Caution, franchise quarterback under repair

Here’s a thought. If you have to teach your franchise quarterback how to play quarterback, maybe he is not your franchise quarterback.

Here’s another thought. If your franchise quarterback is having “growing pains,” maybe he is not your franchise quarterback.

One more thought. If “constructive criticism” is needed for your franchise quarterback, maybe … well, you get the idea.

The schooling slash retooling of Caleb Williams appears to be Job 1 at Halas Hall this summer with moment-to-moment assessments of how well Williams is responding to being molded into something that glory, trophies and money say he already is.

Williams did not just wander in from Podunk, West Virginia, as did at least one Bears quarterback, and not a bad one at that, and a better story, too, but from the glamour and hype of a storied football shop, though it must be pointed out that no USC quarterback has ever won a Super Bowl.

No, Williams came with all the noise and nonsense that promises greatness, portends achievement, and soon, certainly the most anticipated quarterback arrival since … let’s see, since recent savior Justin Fields, now departed and unlamented.

Williams has spent years as a quarterback, from the schoolboy fields in Washington, D.C., to the temporary stop at Oklahoma to the high profile glory of Southern California, he was a quarterback. Turns out, he has been doing it all wrong.

The Bears search for a quarterback can be likened to searching for a dropped quarter on the floor of a movie theater. Whatever you find might not be what you are looking for.

But this time would be different. This was not Mitch Trubisky, maneuvered in front of Patrick Mahomes, not Jay Cutler, traded for and more maligned than appreciated, not Rex Grossman, the trivia answer to “Who is the other Bears Super Bowl quarterback?”

Williams was primed and promised, as real a deal as deals get until that deal gets to Chicago, where, as it turns out, Williams suspiciously found lounging at the bottom of the NFL standings. Putting on a brave face and having no other choice, here he is.

What is needed, according to the new bunch brought in specifically to fix what is needed, is more than mere spackling. Reasons must be found for a league high 68 sacks (poor protection), for poor choices, or none (just a rookie), for being the semi-worst quarterback in the league, 28th just behind Fields (bad coaching).

Blame something called “Hero Ball,” apparently the inclination to make every play a big play. Williams had always been a hero. Everyone told him so. Even if he was 7-5 his last college season.

Remind doubters that goals are there to be met. The 70% completion goal. The 4,000 yards passing goal. Winning more than five football games goal.

Learning to take a snap from the center, the way Tom Brady used to and Mahomes still does, and Josh Allen and Joe Burrows, the way Sid Luckman used to when the Bears popularized the T-formation is now homework.

This is more than just assorted spackling; this is quarterback under repair. Whatever it was about Williams that made him a unanimous No. 1 choice, a Heisman Trophy winner and a “generational talent,” new coach Ben Johnson is apparently unconvinced.

Johnson himself is as over labeled as Williams, being the next great coach. an “offensive mastermind,” putting the two of them in the same frame. If Williams does not work out, it will not be this coach’s fault. If this coach does not work out, well, Williams has already gotten one coach fired.

More thoughts. If the most notable achievement of a franchise quarterback’s first year is to be the first Bears quarterback to get a coach fired during the season, maybe he isn’t a franchise quarterback.

If a franchise quarterback must learn to be more “decisive,” maybe he is not a franchise quarterback.

If a franchise quarterback has to learn to “call plays more smoothly,” maybe he is not a franchise quarterback. If you have to teach him “footwork,” maybe he is not a franchise quarterback.

If a franchise quarterback has to be evaluated daily as “showing improvement,” maybe he is not a franchise quarterback.

And so on …