The Bears quarterback had faced mounting fines for wearing Caddix cleats with a visible logo during the team's win over the Seahawks.
Caleb Williams showed up Monday night in all-black Caddix cleats with the logo blacked out, quietly ending a dispute that had been building for weeks. The NFL had fined Williams for wearing cleats bearing an "unauthorized logo," first $11,941 after the Week 6 game against the Falcons, then $23,882 after Week 7 against the Patriots, doubling the penalty.
Williams had previously said he intended to keep wearing the cleats as is, citing safety considerations, even as the fines climbed toward $12,000 a week. Unlike most NFL players who wear Caddix footwear and simply tape over the markings, Williams had declined to cover them up.
That changed Monday. Williams debuted the logo-less cleats on his way to leading the Bears over the Seattle Seahawks. Asked afterward why he switched, Williams said it was simply to ease the distraction. "Just to calm things down," he said. "It was a big week and I'm not here to create any B.S. towards the team, I wanna keep that to a minimum from my side."
The move brings a quiet resolution to a storyline that had shadowed the Bears' past two weeks, even as Williams did not rule out revisiting the issue down the line.