Caleb Williams’s Contract Requests Could Have Changed the NFL

Last year, Caleb Williams’s father, Carl, broached the idea of his son getting equity in the team that drafted him. That never became part of Williams’s contract negotiations, because the NFL went on to pass a rule barring players and other team employees from receiving ownership stakes in their teams. 

But as his negotiations with the Bears dragged on—the sides finally announced an agreement Wednesday—several unique requests leaked out. The team and league shot them down, but they still show the Williams family’s creative approach to mostly rigid NFL contracts.

At least three groundbreaking requests from Williams’s camp were reported by Mike Florio in a pair of stories this week.

• Williams wanted to get paid as an LLC, which would have avoided taxes in Illinois.
• He also asked about getting paid through a forgivable loan, which would have had the same result.
• He requested a no-franchise-tag clause, which no rookie has ever received.

The league ultimately decided that the first two were impermissible, despite no explicit prohibitions on them in the collective bargaining agreement, according to Pro Football Talk. The Bears rejected the third request.

Who was doing the asking, and how, remains up for debate. Last week, when Williams was still unsigned, he told the Chicago Tribune it was out of his hands.

“I’m not handling that,” Williams said. “My lawyers and attorney and everybody, the head of the Bears, everybody up there up top is handling that. That’s not my position that I’m handling.” But Williams has no NFLPA-certified agent, and teams are not permitted to directly negotiate with any other player representatives. In the end, that may have been the bigger holdup in Williams actually putting pen to paper on his four-year, $39 million rookie deal. Florio, who has been all over the story, reported what “they’re getting into is a situation where the lawyer who’s handling this isn’t as versed in the nuances of the contract as an experienced and competent agent would be.”

Although Williams’s requests and lack of an agent were unusual, going deep into the summer unsigned while haggling over language is not—even for rookies, who mostly have the leverage to negotiate only over offset terms. Williams’s Bears teammate Rome Odunze just agreed to his deal Tuesday. And in his own division, Vikings first-round picks J.J. McCarthy and Dallas Turner remain unsigned as of Thursday morning.