What Really Was Caleb Williams' 2025 Season? & More Lingering Questions

We've reached the end of our Lingering Questions series for the 2026 offseason, and we close it out with a trio of questions that loom large over the year to come. Robert Mays, Derrik Klassen and Dave Helman dive deep into critical questions about Caleb Williams, the Bengals offense, and the Steelers defense on this episode of The Athletic Football Show. 0:00 Welcome to the show 1:07 What was Caleb Williams’ season? 1:27 Incorrect! 2:54 Where some inconsistencies come from 6:23 The bigger concerns 7:46 Take a breath, buddy 8:00 Ball placement 10:00 He knows where to miss 12:22 Regression is coming 13:28 The Jordan Love path 14:22 Josh Allen example unfair? 14:50 Jared Goff a more apt comparison? 15:44 Ben Johnson as the QB shepherd 17:09 The completion percentage conversation 18:15 Throw aways and drops 19:37 Cole Kmet jumping for joy 20:30 Contested catches & DJ Moore 20:59 Rome Odunze 50/50 balls 21:09 Luther Burden III 50/50 balls 22:34 Out of structure efficiency 23:30 In-rhythm success 26:50 Hey, much fewer sacks! 27:20 Down-field throws 27:55 How much better will he be? 28:49 Dallas Cowboys/Cincinnati Bengals parallels 29:24 Is the Bengals offense Super Bowl-ready? 30:46 Bengals lack of explosives 31:30 Joe Burrow 33:08 “They need to be more different” 34:28 Bengals run game 36:30 New build of o-line 36:50 Amarius Mims 37:26 What the run game SHOULD be 40:44 Lack of play action 42:33 Pardon the pun 44:14 Eric All Jr 44:24 “This is some real TAFS shit right here” 46:06 Sense of urgency in Bengals building 47:06 Drew Sample 48:39 We want to talk about the Pittsburgh Steelers 48:49 The Aaron Rodgers caveat 49:01 Patrick Graham to Steelers 49:16 How should we feel about Patrick Graham (and Steelers defense)? 49:46 Las Vegas Raiders seasons a bad indicator? 52:01 Graham and Pete Carroll 53:02 Jamal Adams = spiritual linebacker 54:26 Isaiah Pola-Mao 55:04 Most talent Graham has never had 56:14 Graham’s improvement of Raiders defense 57:57 Patrick Queen, Payton Wilson 1:00:16 We’re not talking about that! For more Athletic Football Show content: Join The Athletic Football Show Discord Server:   / discord   Follow The Athletic Football Show wherever you listen to podcasts: https://podfollow.com/the-athletic-fo... Twitter: https://x.com/TA_FootballShow IG:   / tafootballshow   TikTok:   / tafootballshow   Subscribe to The Athletic: https://theathletic.com/footballshow