Why Signing Case Keenum Makes Good Sense for Bears
Case Keenum generally inspires little Bears fan excitement in this current buildup to March free agency, largely due to the way he struggled the last two seasons with two different teams.
After all, he's not Cam Newton or Tom Brady or even Marcus Mariota.
The Bears could have more interest than their fans, and should. They've had interest in Keenum before this and it was when Ryan Pace was general manager.
Keenum could have been Mike Glennon.
When the Bears were looking to draft Mitchell Trubisky and went after a veteran free agent quarterback to play until Trubisky was ready, Keenum was a player of interest.
Keenum was with the Rams since leaving the Houston Texans in 2014, and had a 7-7 record as a backup pressed into starting. In fact, he did better as starter in 2015 as replacement than starter Nick Foles did. He was 3-2 starting while Foles struggled to a 4-7 record.
Longtime NFL writer Dan Pompei reported the Bills, in addition to the Bears, had interest in Keenum. After the Bears decided on Glennon and signed him, Keenum signed with the Vikings and then went on to have his greatest success by getting them to the NFC championship game. They were 11-3 with him starting and Keenum then parlayed it into a big free agent contract with the Denver Broncos.
It didn't work out, of course, just as it didn't work for Keenum with the Washington Redskins last season.
Keenum hasn't had good numbers through much of his career in the league but it almost seems he's been a circumstantial victim each time, and hasn't had a real opportunity with the support of a strong defense and running game. The one time he did, with the Vikings, he succeeded.
Washington was abysmal last season. Sammy Baugh, Sonny Jurgenson and Joe Theismann combined could not have lifted the Redskins out of that mess. Vance Josephy struggled coaching the Broncos from the time he took over, and Keenum happened to be the quarterback they brought in to start after his winning season in Minnesota. The offense and defense both failed in Denver.
Keenum comes from a long line of quarterback success dating back to his days in college at Houston, where he was under assistant Kliff Kingsbury. He set an NCAA record for most TD passes. Kingsbury later coached Johnny Manziel at Texas A&M, Patrick Mahomes at Texas Tech, and now coaches the Cardinals.
Even last year in a rough season, Keenum completed 11 touchdown passes with five interceptions and connected on 64.8% of his passes. The Redskins were going nowhere and decided to look at Dwayne Haskins.
The knock on Keenum has been one similar to Trubisky: He doesn't get enough big gains downfield in the passing game.
In 62 NFL starts and 2,091 pass attempts, Keenum has averaged only 6.9 yards per pass attempt. Even when he quarterbacked the Vikings to the NFC championship game, he averaged only a career-high 7.4 yards per attempt. Trubisky's best is 7.3 per attempt. For his career, Keenum's average per pass is 6.9 and Trubisky's 6.7.
Keenum's career passer rating is just below Trubisky's (85.8-85.3), as is his completion percentage (63.4-62.4).
The other big attraction of bringing in Keenum is he could play below Trubisky as backup with capability of starting and have no problem doing it. He's been backup and starter throughout his career, while some others like Andy Dalton, Philip Rivers or Cam Newton couldn't do this.
Most of Keenum's career has been as backup. The season in Denver was the only one when he was a starter 16 games, and the Vikings year was his other season as starter.
However, Keenum's playing experience makes him a much better backup option than Chase Daniel even if Daniel has a thorough understanding of coach Matt Nagy's offense. Daniel has thrown 218 passes in 10 years, while Keenum has thrown 2,091 in eight years.
Keenum isn't the scrambler Mariota or Newton would be, or the downfield thrower either of those two or Dalton could be.
However, unlike Newton and Dalton he is a free agent. So he could be signed and begin playing without a trade. And he also was paid only $3.5 million last year. Daniel cost the Bears $6 million against the cap last year.
It's a very reasonable option with an experienced quarterback who might be backup or starter and is underrated, and also someone who could also be a place holder until a rookie quarterback might be trained to start instead of Trubisky.
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