Dave Portnoy says Caleb Williams was texting and driving

The clip is a fan video, filmed from a car alongside on the expressway, with 'Caleb ICE MAN Williams' printed over it. Dave saw a QB texting at the wheel and floated a half suspension. Eddie saw something else.

Eddie

@EddieBarstool

Good try. He’s very clearly looking at his GPS

Dave Portnoy

@stoolpresidente

I think regardless of who you are rooting for tonight we can agree it’s extremely reckless for Caleb Williams to be texting and driving. Im not saying the league should suspend him for a half but maybe if Ben Johnson is the leader of men Bears fans say he is he makes a point about driving safely. Some things are bigger than sports

Eddie's defense is simple: the guy is looking at his GPS. To be fair to everyone, nobody can tell from this clip that it's even Caleb behind the wheel. The overlay says it is, and the clip was made to hype him up as too cool to look over at the fans filming him. That's the whole ICE MAN bit. Dave turned that hype clip into a public safety case, and the Chicago guys at Barstool were ready to argue about it 45 minutes before kickoff.

This isn't the first time these 2 have gotten into it. Back in September, Williams got carted off with a non-contact hamstring injury late in a 9-3 loss to the Vikings, and Dave went after him for how he handled it. Caleb answered by reposting a tweet saying Portnoy had gotten a Mississippi State student arrested and kicked out of school over the 2025 coin-throwing incident at a pizza review. Dave's response: 'I didn't get anybody arrested or kicked outta school.' So when a clip shows up that claims to catch Caleb doing something dumb, Dave was always going to post it.

It also mattered that this was game day. Dave had the Bears circled for weeks. On Wake Up Barstool on October 5, after the Patriots beat Buffalo, he ran through New England's upcoming schedule, and Chicago on Thursday night was the one game he didn't call an easy win.

Wake Up Barstool

@wakeupbarstool

“The Jets stink, win. Bears very tough. Dolphins, Packers win. That's guaranteed four out of the next five.” – Dave Portnoy

0:45

Both teams went into Soldier Field at 4-2, with Chicago a 3-point favorite on Prime Video. The Patriots were coming off a 23-13 win over Dallas, and the Bears had just beaten Atlanta 31-23 with Caleb back from the hamstring. That made this a real measuring-stick game for Ben Johnson's team, and it gave Dave every reason to try to rattle the other team's QB before kickoff.

Is a guy glancing at his dashboard worth half a game? No. Nobody is suspending anybody. But this was never really about traffic safety. Dave and Caleb have been feuding for a month, and Dave will grab any clip that keeps it going. Chicago's Barstool guys will defend their quarterback on anything, including how he uses his navigation. The scoreboard was going to settle the actual argument by the end of the night.