INDIANAPOLIS — It’s first or worst for Caleb Williams.
The favorite to be the No. 1 pick in the NFL draft isn’t entertaining any worst-case scenarios where he gets jumped by Drake Maye, Jayden Daniels or both and falls a spot or two in the first round.
“It’s not a thought in my mind,” Williams said Friday at the NFL Scouting Combine. “I don’t think I’m not going to be No. 1. I put in all the hard work. All of the time, effort, energy into being that. I don’t think of a Plan B. That’s kind of how I do things in my life. I don’t think of a Plan B. Stay on Plan A and then when things don’t work out find a way to make Plan A work.”
Williams has taken the trend among top quarterbacks of not participating in on-field drills to the next level by also skipping medical evaluations, which makes him possibly the first prospect to attend but skip the combine’s primary purpose since it began in 1985.
“I’ll be doing the medical stuff — just not here in Indy,” Williams said. “I’ll be doing them at the team interviews. Not 32 teams can draft me. There is only one of me. So the teams that I go to for my [facility] visits will have the medical and that’s it.”
The Bears hold the No. 1 pick and are likely to draft Williams and trade incumbent starter Justin Fields. But it’s possible that they could stick with Fields and trade the pick — or trade Fields, trade the pick and select a different quarterback.
“Caleb is the one franchise-changer in this draft,” one source from a team with a top-10 pick told The Post.
Williams shut down talk last week that he might not want to play in Chicago. The Commanders hold the No. 2 pick, are his hometown team and represent a “really cool” opportunity, and have his former USC assistant coach, Kliff Kingsbury, as offensive coordinator.
“I want to go to a place that wants to win,” Williams said. “A whole 360 — all the way from the top down to the janitors and people that make everything run. Everybody wants to win, everyone is part of that and we all take care of each other.”
The Bears have had just one Pro Bowl quarterback since 1985. Even he (Mitch Trubisky) was considered a draft bust after going No. 2 — ahead of Patrick Mahomes and Deshaun Watson — in 2017.
Is that history enough to scare off Williams?
“I don’t compare myself to the other guys that are there or have been there,” Williams said. “I think I’m my own player. I tend to like to create history and rewrite history.”
It takes some revisionist history to say that Williams is a no-brainer choice, however. There were critics when he cried in his mothers’ arms after a loss to Washington.
“This is one of the seasons that it’s not like any other season I’ve had, where I’ve been so close to being neutral [.500] or close to having a losing record. It was tough for me,” Williams said.
He added, “There are not many people in the world that get to experience what I experience every game day, every practice. It’s something that I really care about, which is not only winning the game but doing it with my teammates. Every time we lose, I feel like I let my teammates down.”
How do teammates respond to Williams? Ask former USC receiver Brendan Rice, whose father is Hall of Famer Jerry Rice.
“Each down you’re just going to have to bring your ‘A’ game,” Rice said, “because he’s going to expect so much from you to raise yourself as a person on and off the field.”
But Williams’ record is misleading, his supporters say. He is undefeated when his team’s defense — which was notoriously bad by USC standards last season — allows less than 34 points.
So, he will stand on that résumé and not on combine drills.
“I played around 30-something games,” Williams said. “Go ahead and watch real live ball of me and see how I am as a competitor.”