No quarterback entered the 2026 NFL season with more questions about his ceiling than Caleb Williams. After a breakout 2025 season, many fans and analysts predicted a regression for both him and the Chicago Bears as a team. Well, we're halfway through the 2026 season now and Williams is a legit MVP candidate despite missing three games due to injury.

Williams stamped himself as one of the NFL's elite quarterbacks on Monday, when he led the Bears to a statement primetime win over the Seattle Seahawks. In doing so, Williams quietly set another NFL record, this time pushing past future first-ballot Hall of Fame quarterback Aaron Rodgers. According to Ken Mitchell, assistant editor at Windy City Gridiron, Williams has now recorded 36 consecutive regular season games with at least 20 pass attempts and no more than one interception, surpassing Rodgers' record of 35 games.

What exactly does this mean? This shows that Williams is a consistently high-volume passer who doesn't put the ball in harm's way very often, much like his childhood idol Aaron Rodgers. In fact, Rodgers still holds the lowest career interception percentage in NFL history, according to Pro Football Reference.

This isn't even the first time that Caleb Williams has set an NFL record regarding interceptions. He made history against the Cleveland Browns last year, becoming the all-time leader for fewest interceptions thrown (13) in a quarterback's first 1,000 NFL pass attempts. And here's the kicker: the previous record-holder was, once again, Aaron Rodgers.

Caleb Williams dismantled the best defense in the NFL

Aside from setting a new NFL record, Williams' banner performance against the Seahawks was significant for another reason. He became the first quarterback this season to put up more than 200 passing yards against Seattle's dreaded "Dark Side" defense, and in fact surpassed Seattle's average passing yards allowed per game (144) by the two-minute warning of the first half.

Remarkably, Williams did this all with very little help from the run game. Sure, D'Andre Swift ran in three touchdowns, but he was almost a complete non-factor outside of goal-to-go situations. Swift finished the day averaging less than three yards per carry, proving just how badly the Bears need Kyle Monangai to return from injury.

Any concerns about whether Caleb Williams is in fact a franchise quarterback should be put to rest by now. In back-to-back games, he's led the Bears past both of last year's Super Bowl teams, averaging a 75.1 QBR and a 108.8 passer rating between those games. He's firmly in the MVP race despite missing three games and he has the Bears looking like Super Bowl favorites.

Go on and celebrate, Bears fans. For the first time in many of your lives, you have a franchise quarterback.

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