Caleb Williams Is Already Planning His Second Madden Cover

Caleb Williams walked into the New Heights interview already thinking about his second Madden cover. He hasn’t played a single snap of the season the first one celebrates. He’s rated a 90. And he is fine with all of this, because the plan is to fix it. That particular combination of confidence and self-awareness is basically the whole Caleb Williams thing, and it comes through in every answer he gives Travis and Jason Kelce in what turns out to be a genuinely fun forty-five minutes of football conversation.

The Madden cover reveal is the ostensible reason Williams is here, but the better material is the stuff around it. The Bears quarterback is in his second year under offensive coordinator Ben Johnson, and the difference in how he talks about the offense now versus what he describes from year one is stark. Last OTAs, they could barely get a play call out of the huddle. Now Williams meets with Johnson every day, they’re running “perfect plays,” and he’s stepping into what he calls a role he hasn’t had in his first two NFL seasons, both of which featured entirely new coaching staffs. The comfort is not small talk. It’s the whole ballgame.

Last year at this time we could barely spit out a call right, and so now it’s been a lot more fun for me per se to be able to be in this position.

The Iceman Cometh, Eventually

Williams is easy company. He tells the Kelces his second sport is swimming, which nobody in the room saw coming, and explains that the shoulder rotation and leg strength from backstroke and freestyle is probably where the funky off-platform throws come from. No baseball, just backyard ball and, as he puts it, “running away from all my friends that were older than me.” Jason, who spent thirteen years getting paid to engage in exactly that kind of chaos, nods like this is the most sensible origin story he’s ever heard.

There’s a good stretch where Williams breaks down why three tight ends who can all run, block, and catch is a genuine nightmare for defenses, and it doesn’t feel like a promotional talking point. He’s specific about the Vikings playoff game, hitting Cole Kmet on a 25-yard seam route, and about the moment he realized he had enough space on that rollout to put the ball in the back of the end zone and let a 6’5”, 260-pound man do the rest. Travis calls it history. Williams calls it finding the right matchup. Both are correct.

I saw probably 10 people to the right and I saw just Cole and 14 to the left. And 14 is a smaller guy. And obviously Cole is 6’5, 260. And they were near the front end zone. So my whole thing is just try and put this ball in the back end zone.

The Trades, the Shirts, and Eric Bieniemy

Before Williams shows up, the Kelces spend a solid half hour on the two trades that dominated the first week of the league year. Myles Garrett to the Rams for Jared Verse and a stack of future picks. AJ Brown to the Patriots for Drake May to throw him the football. Jason’s take on both is the most coherent thing said about either deal since they happened. On Garrett, he thinks Cleveland nets out better on paper but completely understands why Los Angeles made the move, given that Matthew Stafford is still there and the window is not. On Brown, he refuses to let the narrative collapse into a personality story. The Eagles’ passing offense had been declining for three years. Execution fuels emotion. When the production stops, the frustration follows. It’s not more complicated than that.

AJ Brown was not the reason the Eagles offense was not successful this year. He’s a very good football player. I don’t want to hear all this. Has he lost a step? We’re going to find out this year.

Travis, meanwhile, is almost vibrating about Eric Bieniemy returning to Kansas City as offensive coordinator. He describes the feeling of having Bieniemy back in the building the way people describe finding their old running shoes, the ones that actually fit. Patrick Mahomes reportedly said the first meeting had him ready to run through a brick wall. Travis says he can’t wait until Bieniemy, in his words, comes for him in practice. That is either the healthiest relationship between a coordinator and a receiver in the league or evidence that the Chiefs’ internal culture is genuinely different from everyone else’s. Probably both.

The episode closes with Williams confirming that Ben Johnson was, in fact, preparing his shirtless celebration over the course of several months of early-morning weight room sessions, which is either the most dedicated commitment to a bit in NFL history or proof that offensive coordinators contain multitudes. Williams watched it happen from the locker room and says the place went completely sideways. A 90 Madden rating, three tight ends, and a shirtless play-caller. Year two in Chicago has some momentum behind it.

The legend of Caleb begins.