LAKE FOREST, ILL. -- You might remember when then-prospect Caleb Williams interrupted Brenden Rice's podium time at the NFL Combine to ask him where people should draft him in Fantasy.
Caleb Williams just popped into @uscfb teammate Brenden Rice’s #NFLCombine press conference to ask a fantasy football question. pic.twitter.com/Jo6M814e8N
— Dan Parr (@TheDan_Parr) March 1, 2024
If Williams asked new teammate Rome Odunze that question right now, Odunze has an answer for what he (and everyone else) should do this fall.
"You gotta put me in the flex right now, I'm not going to lie," Odunze told CBS Sports from Bears minicamp on Wednesday.
After a couple of practices, it might not be such a bad idea.
Naturally, all the talk from Bears camp has been about Caleb Williams' development. From the bad (his cadence and his interceptions) to the good (sensational arm strength and playmaking ability), all eyes and minds are on the new hero quarterback of a franchise that's had anything but.
But Odunze has stood out on his own. The rookie has logged reps exclusively with the starters, usually as the third receiver lined up outside. He's been in sync with Williams on a good amount of his targets, including two on Tuesday in 7-on-7 drills: A 20-yard dart out of a two-receiver formation, and another big gain on a trademark Williams scramble drill where he threw across his body to Odunze, who wisely ran hard in the same direction as Williams to become an available target.
Getting on the same page so quickly with Williams stood out.
"Maybe we have the instincts thing already," Odunze said.
Odunze isn't the only one catching passes from Williams at minicamp. He's sharing the receiving room with two unquestioned receiving stalwarts in D.J. Moore and Keenan Allen. Moore has picked up where he left off last year even with the change in quarterback, contorting to make some tough catches and getting open for plenty of downfield gains while Allen started developing his timing with Williams on short routes on Wednesday.
The chance to share the field with these two studs is not lost on Odunze.
"It's like football heaven to be in a room with all these guys and be able to learn from them day by day," Odunze said.
The rookie compared his situation this year to his situation the past two years at Washington, calling all three receivers "ones".
"For us at UW we were all WR1, honestly," Odunze explained. "We all complemented one other and that's why we had a lot of success and went to the league in the first three rounds.
"This situation, I think it's exactly that. We have not only three guys but a wide receiver corps as a whole that's capable of doing so many different things. It's so versatile that we kind of just complement off one another."
The incredible depth of this receiving corps is why Odunze, who said he played Fantasy Football the past two seasons for fun, has to call himself a flex. Any given week, one guy can go off and another goes off the next.
And the receivers know it. Allen told the media on Tuesday that he and Moore have a race to see who can get to 1,000 yards first. Odunze wants in on the contest.
"I think I'm in, I think they know I'm in," he said. "I think our whole wide receiver corps as a whole is in. You never know what's gonna happen. We're all competitive in that way, we want to push each other."
