The biggest fear going into this season came to pass far sooner than anybody expected. Everybody knew the last thing the Chicago Bears could afford was Caleb Williams getting hurt. Sure enough, he was carted to the locker room late in the 9-3 loss to the Minnesota Vikings. It was later diagnosed as a hamstring injury, though the severity remains uncertain. Presuming it is the typical case, Williams is looking at missing up to a month of action. That would mean Tyson Bagent, the team’s fourth-year backup, will get the starting nod moving forward.
That is utterly terrifying for many. Any time you move from the starter to the backup, it feels like a death sentence. It goes back to the old Tom Moore saying about Peyton Manning getting all the reps in practice. If he goes down, the team is “f**ked.” They don’t practice “f**ked.” Still, history has its fair share of stories of unheralded backups rising to the occasion. Jeff Hostetler won a Super Bowl in New York. Nick Foles did the same thing in Philadelphia. Josh McCown was terrific for the Bears in 2013.
If you listen to Bears players in the locker room after the game when asked about the prospect of Bagent starting, they don’t seem at all perturbed by it.
There is an element of Tyson Bagent starting that shouldn’t be ignored.
Anybody who has watched him over the past two preseasons knows that he is much more the traditional quarterback. He operates almost exclusively from the pocket. He’ll take the snap, go through his reads, and unload the ball as quickly as possible. He only runs when given no other choice. Bagent is not like Williams, who is free to use his outstanding mobility as a weapon. Some may think this takes away from the offense. In some ways, that is true, but it also may bring back something else.
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It may bring back Ben Johnson’s original offense.
Before coming to Chicago, the head coach ran a system that was steeped in old-school thinking: run the football, play under center, lots of play action, and timing-based passing routes. Jared Goff, who is very much a pocket-first guy, thrived in that system. If you’ve watched Tyson Bagent throughout the past two preseasons, you’d see that he functions very well in it, too. Yes, it is acknowledged that he’s playing against backup defenders. However, you can’t discount the fact that he’s also not operating the full Bears scheme, only a shell of it.
| Season | Games Played | Passing Stats | TDs / INTs | Passer Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 Preseason | 3 | 46/69 comp/att (66.7%), 511 yards | 5 TD / 1 INT | 106.6 |
| 2026 Preseason | 2 | 29/39 comp/att (74.4%), 377 yards | 3 TD / 1 INT | 119.3 |
Last but not least, Bagent has actual starting experience.
People tend to forget this, but he started 4 games in 2023 as a rookie for the Bears when Justin Fields got hurt. It wasn’t always pretty, but he did complete 65% of his passes, threw two touchdowns, ran for another, and overcame 5 interceptions to go 2-2. It kept the team afloat long enough for Fields to return. If he could do that as a rookie under Luke Getsy, is it so crazy to think he can at least do the same with Johnson? This is a far better system with far better weapons than three years ago. He is also far more experienced.
It’s not like he stunk up the joint when he did come in on Sunday. With the game on the line and just over a minute left, he hit passes of 6, 18, 21, and 8 yards to give them a shot at winning a touchdown. Sadly, he couldn’t get that last completion to close the deal.
Bagent is not Williams. That doesn’t matter. The Bears know that. They don’t expect him to be Williams. Johnson knows exactly what type of quarterback he is and the type of offense he can function in. It’s one the head coach knows well. If Williams is out for a while, the Bears can still be competitive with Bagent at the helm.
