The Green Bay Packers want to get back to the top of the NFC North next season and make a deep run into the playoffs. One of the obstacles they will face on that journey is the Chicago Bears, who defeated the Packers twice to put a disappointing finish to their 2025 season and are obsessed with adding to that success this season.
There are many matchups and backstories that will determine who will get the best of one of the NFL’s most bitter rivalries, but the biggest will be Jordan Love against Caleb Williams. That rivalry took a step forward when Williams edged out Love for the 10th and final spot in a survey among executives, coaches and scouts conducted by ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler. While it may be a controversial decision, FS1’s Danny Parkins agreed, citing Williams’s highlight tape as the ultimate tiebreaker.
“I think that Caleb [as] a top 10 quarterback is a projection on some level and I also love the eye test,” Parkins said on Wednesday’s edition of First Things First. “The 90-second highlight tape, the four-minute highlight tape of Caleb Williams is arguably as impressive as any player in football. He does not do it as consistently.
“He is not as statistically productive over 17 games, but when we show a montage of Caleb Williams’s best, and then I send it to a coach, a GM, a scout and I’m like ‘How many other guys could have a highlight tape like this? What’s the list? [Patrick] Mahomes, [Josh] Allen, and Caleb. End of list. So I think some of this is projection, and some of it is just not wanting to feel silly, because his talent is so clearly 99th percentile.”
Strip away the blue and orange and some Packers fans may agree that Williams is a fun quarterback to watch. But comparing him to Love should be more than a highlight reel and give the Packers the advantage heading into next season.
Jordan Love’s consistency separates him from Caleb Williams entering 2026
There was a time when Love was in Williams’s shoes. Sitting on the bench in the final years of Aaron Rodgers’s time in Green Bay, Love was a toolsy quarterback that needed to calm down his inconsistencies.
The formula got off to a rocky start when Love completed 58.7 percent of his passes for 2,009 yards, 14 touchdowns and 10 interceptions in his first nine starts of the 2023 season. But he turned a corner from that point on, completing 66.1 percent of his passes for 8,920 yards, 66 touchdowns and 18 interceptions in his last 38 regular season starts.
Love isn’t perfect but the key is that the Packers know what they’re going to get. To that point, Love has had just three multi-interception games over the last 38 starts and he gets the ball to his targets on time, elevating the Packers’ group of skill players.
Williams hasn’t been bad during his time in the NFL, but he also has moments where you wonder what he’s thinking. At times, he’ll rely too much on his tools and while the Bears went 11-6 and defeated Green Bay in the Wild Card round of the playoffs, his completion percentage dropped from 62.5 percent to 58.1 percent.
The decisions and completion rate could get better in Williams’s second year under Ben Johnson. He could also add to a highlight tape which, as Parkins noted, is already impressive entering his third season. But Fowler’s study wasn’t to conduct how good Williams will be or how good his highlight tape looked. It was to decide who are the best players right now.
The top of the list is filled with players who have similar skill sets to Williams including Allen and Mahomes. But the reason they’re on the list is because they consistently do it year in and year out. Packer fans have seen Love do that over his three years as a starter and while Williams has won games, Bears fans are still waiting for him to hit an extra gear.
It’s why the debate between Love and Williams is far from over and brings an important data point as both quarterbacks prepare for the 2026 season.
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