Tyler Dunne's piece on Caleb Williams is DAMNING

[Coach Tuesday]

4 hours ago, GunnerBill said:

 

Sure. I just don't think he was interested in speaking to anyone who disagrees with his narrative. And when you think about the number of people let go from the Bears over the past 12 months: from coaches, to support staff, to players, to personnel guys... it wouldn't be difficult to find 32 people with axes to grind. 

 

Again I am not doubting that his sources are honestly sharing their truth of what happened and what it felt like. I am doubting that is a fully rounded view of what went on in Chicago last year.

So you could be right and my hypothesis is if you are he will face consequences.  We will see.  32 sources is 32 sources, he’s at least presenting it as real journalism (your point about peer review is a fair one, don’t know what his process is as a solo but you’d hope he vets it past colleagues in some form), some of the specific events he talks about either did or did not happen and if they didn’t, he’ll be destroyed.  If they did, not sure how they can be explained away.  If Caleb routinely skips film study and prep sessions and turns and walks back onto the field while his coach is instructing him during games, there may not be a lot of help from “other perspectives.”

Edited September 7 by Coach Tuesday

[Not at the table Karlos]

15 hours ago, Big Turk said:

Does he write any other kind of pieces? It's kind of his schtick.

 

Make a living off trashing others.

 

One pretty sh!tty human being.

He actually writes a lot. But the negative ones get the most attention. He’s a pretty good writer but people like to use emotions and act like they’re better than someone when they do the same thing they’re up in arms about in return. It’s odd. 

[Mikie2times]

3 hours ago, FireChans said:

What you are missing is the pursuit of the truth.

 

Wholly negative propaganda to offset positive propaganda doesn’t seem right.

 

I wouldn’t say the reports out on Caleb Williams this year have glowing at all, I don’t know what you’ve seen otherwise?

Do you consider the insanely glowing reports to be the truth? Reports like that were everywhere last year about Caleb. Doesn’t seem like those reports were all that true at this point? I really don’t understand the difference here. One is bias to the positive and one is bias to the negative. 

Edited September 7 by Mikie2times

[dave mcbride]

20 hours ago, DrDawkinstein said:

 

I'm almost 100% certain most of this is coming directly from Shane Waldron, the OC the Bears fired midseason due to incompetence and refusing to do his job of developing Williams.

 

The big story on Waldron was when he straight up refused to watch film with Caleb Williams AT ALL.

 

Williams had to seek outside sources to help him review film and learn what to look for, and even had to setup his own film study room, because Waldron refused to do it with him.

 

Complete coaching malpractice and stealing money from the team.

 

As far as "not knowing how to watch film" and "calling the plays wrong"... yeah, I believe all that was true. Not because Williams has a problem, but because A LOT of quarterbacks come out of college having never huddled, having never called a play, having never even taken a snap from under center (and have to learn how to take the snap, and do their drop-back for the first time as a pro).

 

It's up to the coaching staffs on their pro teams to teach and develop them, and Waldron refused.

 

He was fired midseason due to this incompetence, and is now on a revenge tour after all this came out.

 

I'm not even a Caleb Wiliams fan, but this is just doing him dirty.

 

Shane Waldron is to Caleb Williams as Quinton Spain is the Sean McDermott.

 

 

Worth your time and very good context for the piece written by Dunne. Alerting @GunnerBill too. https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6584516/2025/09/02/nfl-first-round-quarterback-busts/

[FireChans]

7 minutes ago, Mikie2times said:

Do you consider the insanely glowing reports to be the truth? Reports like that were everywhere last year about Caleb. Doesn’t seem like those reports were all that true at this point? I really don’t understand the difference here. One is bias to the positive and one is bias to the negative. 

What reports are you referring to?

 

when he was in college 2 years ago?

[dave mcbride]

18 hours ago, Coach Tuesday said:

I’d rather talk about the content.

Some context worth considering as you consider the Dunne piece: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6584516/2025/09/02/nfl-first-round-quarterback-busts/

[Big Turk]

2 hours ago, Not at the table Karlos said:

He actually writes a lot. But the negative ones get the most attention. He’s a pretty good writer but people like to use emotions and act like they’re better than someone when they do the same thing they’re up in arms about in return. It’s odd. 

 

The difference is most people are not trashing a player in a publication read by millions and then going on various podcasts and radio shows and talking about the hit piece they wrote.

[Sierra Foothills]

I TRY not to judge others... and fail quite often.

 

But regarding Tyler Dunne, he chose a ***** industry at a time when it's becoming even shittier. In fairness to journalism, most industries are becoming shittier these days.

 

That said the exception is not the rule and media outlets that provide employment to actual journalists are few and far between. Good journalism is dying. Even the final few remaining bastions of journalism are in contraction and under fire by coercive political players. It's becoming rarer that outlets stand by their reporting and more common that they make decisions based on marketing to audiences and avoiding litigation. Truth in reporting has never meant so little in the grand scheme of things than it does today. Good journalism jobs are hard to find.

 

Further shrinking the market is that the audiences generally even can't spell "journalism" and it seems that most people would rather get their media fix in the form of a 32 oz Big Gulp Cola Slushee than from a cup of coffee.

 

So Dunne can feed his family (or pay off his student loans, or whatever he's trying to keep afloat) by finding a way forward in his chosen profession or he can look for another profession. He's currently trying a disparate grab bag of confirmation bias, sensationalism, subscriptions, and long form writing in order to pay his bills.

 

One thing you can say about Dunne is that he's not one of these people who's sending out resumes and waiting for the phone to ring... he's fighting for his professional survival.

 

[Low Positive]

3 minutes ago, Sierra Foothills said:

I TRY not to judge others... and fail quite often.

 

But regarding Tyler Dunne, he chose a ***** industry at a time when it's becoming even shittier. In fairness to journalism, most industries are becoming shittier these days.

 

That said the exception is not the rule and media outlets that provide employment to actual journalists are few and far between. Good journalism is dying. Even the final few remaining bastions of journalism are in contraction and under fire by coercive political players. It's becoming rarer that outlets stand by their reporting and more common that they make decisions based on marketing to audiences and avoiding litigation. Truth in reporting has never meant so little in the grand scheme of things than it does today. Good journalism jobs are hard to find.

 

Further shrinking the market is that the audiences generally even can't spell "journalism" and it seems that most people would rather get their media fix in the form of a 32 oz Big Gulp Cola Slushee than from a cup of coffee.

 

So Dunne can feed his family (or pay off his student loans, or whatever he's trying to keep afloat) by finding a way forward in his chosen profession or he can look for another profession. He's currently trying a disparate grab bag of confirmation bias, sensationalism, subscriptions, and long form writing in order to pay his bills.

 

One thing you can say about Dunne is that he's not one of these people who's sending out resumes and waiting for the phone to ring... he's fighting for his professional survival.

 

He did generate 5 pages of discussion here with an article about a player that will never play for the Bills, so he must be doing something right in his fight for relevance in the attention economy.

[mannc]

I’d be curious how many commenters here actually read the article…I’d guess less than a third…

[Sierra Foothills]

1 minute ago, Low Positive said:

He did generate 5 pages of discussion here with an article about a player that will never play for the Bills, so he must be doing something right in his fight for relevance in the attention economy.

 

I'd be interested to know how much the discussion here has added to his coffers... tangibly and intangibly.

 

It's difficult to frame Dunne without knowing his financial situation. We don't know if he's wealthy (I highly doubt it) but on the other hand, many know his name.

 

But again, he's betting on himself to make a living and doing what he has to do to stay afloat... which is also to say that there's worse things that he could be doing.

 

[GoBills808]

2 minutes ago, mannc said:

I’d be curious how many commenters here actually read the article…I’d guess less than a third…

the mcdermott article generated like 50pages worth of thread and i think there were only about 3 people who had actually read it

Just now, Sierra Foothills said:

 

I'd be interested to know how much the discussion here has added to his coffers... tangibly and intangibly.

 

It's difficult to frame Dunne without knowing his financial situation. We don't know if he's wealthy (I highly doubt it) but on the other hand, many know his name.

 

But again, he's betting on himself to make a living and doing what he has to do to stay afloat... which is also to say that there's worse things that he could be doing.

 

what a weird thing to say

 

is that how you go thru life lol

[Sierra Foothills]

2 minutes ago, Sierra Foothills said:

It's difficult to frame Dunne without knowing his financial situation. We don't know if he's wealthy (I highly doubt it) but on the other hand, many know his name.

 

But again, he's betting on himself to make a living and doing what he has to do to stay afloat... which is also to say that there's worse things that he could be doing.

 

 

1 minute ago, GoBills808 said:

what a weird thing to say

 

is that how you go thru life lol

 

People here are attacking him but they don't know the circumstances of his life... there's probably a lot of double standards being exercised as people malign his work.

 

As I said at the outset of my post, "I try not to judge others."

 

Are you judging me? Are you familiar with the stuff I write here?

 

Do you think that's "how I go through life?"

 

[Mikie2times]

1 hour ago, FireChans said:

What reports are you referring to?

 

when he was in college 2 years ago?

Thousands of positive articles have been written about Caleb and McD. They’re still the overwhelming majority of media content about both. Caleb has been more neutral but it wasn’t that way when he entered the league or in his times at USC. Even a lot of his first year. I don’t want to keep on here, the point its scrutinized because it’s negative. Positive content doesn’t go thru that process. Both are just as likely to be missing the full perspective. So I don’t see a problem with his style. I appreciate it somebody who is willing to not just write puff pieces. 

[GoBills808]

Just now, Sierra Foothills said:

 

 

People here are attacking him but they don't know the circumstances of his life... there's probably a lot of double standards being exercised as people malign his work.

 

As I said at the outset of my post, "I try not to judge others."

 

Are you judging me? Are you familiar with the stuff I write here?

 

im judging your statement 'it's difficult to frame Dunne w out knowing his financial situation' as weird

 

absent knowing someone personally most people would expect to be judged on the quality of their work alone

[blacklabel]

I've actually met Tyler, he's a good dude. His stuff seems pretty well vetted. I think at this point many of us are just flat out sick of the constant shows, articles, podcasts, and opinions. He's a level up from most of the talking heads that never shut up. I don't watch much of any pregame stuff, watch the games on mute. I'll watch some post game stuff to catch highlights from other games and most news I read online. It just seems to be the nature of fans (of anything) to shout "this sucks and so do you" any time they read or see something with which they disagree. 

[Sierra Foothills]

4 minutes ago, GoBills808 said:

im judging your statement 'it's difficult to frame Dunne w out knowing his financial situation' as weird

 

absent knowing someone personally most people would expect to be judged on the quality of their work alone

 

I understand the point you're making.

 

I try not to judge others because I don't know what they're going through. That was my point and I don't think it's that "weird."

 

As far as Dunne's work, I don't pay for it so I don't read it and I'm not familiar with it so I have no opinion of it.

 

I do know that there are some posters here I respect that defend Dunne's work so I'll continue not to judge it.

 

I commented because I'm uncomfortable with the firestorm of contempt directed at Dunne.

 

 

[GoBills808]

51 minutes ago, Sierra Foothills said:

 

I understand the point you're making.

 

I try not to judge others because I don't know what they're going through. That was my point and I don't think it's that "weird."

 

As far as Dunne's work, I don't pay for it so I don't read it and I'm not familiar with it so I have no opinion of it.

 

I do know that there are some posters here I respect that defend Dunne's work so I'll continue not to judge it.

 

I commented because I'm uncomfortable with the firestorm of contempt directed at Dunne.

 

 

so i do read his stuff and pay for it so i feel fairly well qualified to make judgements on his quality

 

dunne is a B- writer from a technical standpoint imo. what he lacks in editorial talent he makes up for in sensationalism. i'm sure he's aware of this.

 

he appears to have wider-than-average access to certain teams and nfl content in general sells so he's carved out a nice little space for himself. i have no reason to doubt the veracity of his articles

[Coach Tuesday]

2 hours ago, dave mcbride said:

Some context worth considering as you consider the Dunne piece: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6584516/2025/09/02/nfl-first-round-quarterback-busts/

Yup I read that last week - good stuff.

[RochesterLifer]

2 hours ago, dave mcbride said:

Some context worth considering as you consider the Dunne piece: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6584516/2025/09/02/nfl-first-round-quarterback-busts/

Thanks Coach, for calling this article out….extremely interesting and insightful.