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00:00This is ESPN senior writer Seth Wickersham. The book American Kings, a biography of the quarterback,
00:05is publishing in September. The article that we are discussing with him are excerpts from
00:10Caleb Williams's dad, Carl Williams, talking to him about his son, the draft process,
00:15and then what happened afterward. So we have the quote here that you have from Williams,
00:20Seth, saying, I don't want my son playing for the Bears, Williams told several agents in 2024.
00:24After that reported discussion where Caleb Williams then told Carl he didn't want to
00:30nuke the city were the words that he used. He didn't want to go against this city.
00:35What became Carl's attitude? He was supporting his son, but he was skeptical. I mean, you know,
00:43look at, you know, Carl Williams on Twitter, you know, you can Google it, but, you know,
00:48he would tweet things that were, you know, things that made the coaching staff look bad. So it's
00:53pretty obvious, you know, how he thought the season was going and, you know, they didn't play well.
00:58I mean, everything he thought could happen, sadly, did happen. I mean, he saw it coming and that's
01:06one of the reasons why he was so passionate about his willingness to take bullets and do what was
01:13necessary for his son to have the best chance of success. Yeah, I think I measured that as Carl
01:17Williams being a protective dad as he should and wanting the best for his son. I can certainly see
01:22where he's coming from in all of this, especially given how last season actually did
01:27play out. My question is this, have you had any communication with Carl or Caleb since the Ben
01:33Johnson announcement? And if so, what has the attitude been towards Ben Johnson, just in relation
01:38to maybe how they described everything before, specifically Kevin O'Connor?
01:42I saw Caleb, I want to say it was after the Johnson hire and it was maybe early February,
01:51I want to say. And I did ask him if, you know, he obviously like, you know, when he came out and
01:58he was drafted and they called his name, you know, he wheeled around that corner and you saw him
02:03scream, just let out that huge exhale, that release. And I did ask him whether, you know,
02:09the scream that he let out when Ben Johnson was hired was similar in terms of emotion. I think it,
02:14I think it was, I think he's pretty excited.