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Bear Digest

It's Bears vs. Jets and Here's Why the Feeling of Deja Vu Is Very Real

A second-team QB and a third-team QB are looking to start for the Bears, and if it all seems like you've lived it before it's because you have.
Gene Chamberlain|
Former Bears quarterback Trevor Siemian is tackled in the team's loss during the 2022 season at MetLife Stadium,
Former Bears quarterback Trevor Siemian is tackled in the team's loss during the 2022 season at MetLife Stadium, | USA TODAY Sports

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Chicago Bears

So it's Friday and the Bears are about to play the Jets on Sunday but no one knows who the quarterback will be between backup Tyson Bagent and third-string quarterback Case Keenum.

Maybe it's just the Jets causing this. Most of the time when teams have a QB controversy, it's between who starts between the starter and backup. The Bears are not most teams.

Flash back to the last time the Bears faced the Jets, and it's more than ironic that they were trying to figure out who would start between the backup and the third-string QB. It's downright eery, in fact.

The situation can't possibly be the same as that time, though, on this Sunday. It is somewhat of a coincidence considering they haven't played this team in four years and now when they are they don't have the starter again and there is a question about who starts between the two reserves — even if Ben Johnson does know and he's milking this uncertainty for all it's worth with the enemy.

The Bears had their usual shorter Friday practice and were able to go outdoors for the first time this week, and the media usually gets to see about 10 minutes of the start of work. Instead, they were shooed out quickly by PR people only a few minutes into it, shortly after stretching ended. No peeking. Johnson definitely is playing this one like he's in a game of Texas Hold 'Em, as he prepares to face his former Lions colleague, Aaron Glenn.

It's 2022 All Over Again

When the Bears played the Jets last time, Justin Fields had been injured by the Falcons and it was going to be Trevor Siemian stepping in with all of his experience from a few years of starting for the Broncos and then playing as a backup elsewhere.

Just before gametime in New Jersey it was announced Siemian somehow injured an oblique in warmups and third-stringer Nathan Peterman would need to face the Jets. Finally, at the last possible moment, Siemian said he would gut it out. He went 14 of 25 for 179 yards with a touchdown and an interception and the Bears got obliterated by the Jets 31-10. Later, Siemian wound up on injured reserve and had to have season-ending surgery for the oblique injury.

It was a strange day and this one looks much different, even if the scenario is playing so far like it did four years ago, with Caleb Williams being ruled out Friday by coach Ben Johnson. No starter has been announced. This is different than the last time as Siemian was expected to start all along.

“We'll find out on Sunday," was Johnson's proclamation.

Johnson's statement didn't sit well with reporters and pressed further, he said his choices were: “Tyson, Case and let me throw Miller Moss in there." Moss is the practice squad QB.

“Regardless of who our quarterback is, they have a talented group around them, talented offensive line, talented running backs, talented skill players," Johnson said. "And they're just playing point guard. They're just running the operation, and they're distributing the ball. That's all they have to worry about.”

The two choices are fairly simple. There's the hot hand, who is Keenum after a 27-7 win over the Eagles. Then there is Bagent, who won the backup job already. It would seem unfair to the backup if he is now healthy and past the concussion that kept him from playing in Williams' place last week, if Johnson decided to go to Keenum. If that was the case, Bagent should have simply let Keenum win the battle for second QB at the outset. Teams don't usually go from No. 1 to No. 3, although this isn't the first time it happened with Keenum. In Houston, he played one week as the third-teamer, ahead of backup Davis Mills.

The interesting part of this is Johnson called it less than unanimous among coaches over who should start. Then again, with all of this subterfuge going on he may simply have been pulling the media's leg.

"There is such a thing as playing the hot hand," Johnson admitted. "That is real, and we're certainly taking that into consideration. And yet, there's a body of work that goes into it as well. There's a lot of factors at play, and we certainly have talked about it as a coaching staff.

"Honestly, it's split. If you just ask each coach one-on-one what they think, it's split. I don't think, once again, I don't know that there's necessarily a right answer or a wrong answer in terms of how we go about this thing. I know both of them are well prepared to play and win a game for us here. I'm excited about that.”

Just be happy it's not 2022 again

Johnson said the end result is they'll have someone playing who they believe in and then left it at that. Wait until Sunday morning and check with whatever NFL Network reporter had the named starter handed to him on a silver platter by the league or team, Rap Sheet or the like.

“Honestly, I feel really good about the whole room," Johnson said. "I don't know that there's a bad choice or a wrong choice. We're very, very fortunate that we've got guys that we believe in. The whole team believes.

"It's not just the coaching staff. The whole team believes in everybody in that room."

It might seem unfair to Keenum to not give him the start after his strong effort Monday but it wouldn't be fair to Bagent to know he won the backup job and had it taken away by matters he couldn't control. Living in limbo is not easy.

"That should be a chapter in my next book," Keenum quipped.

Not being 100% sure about the situation seems unfair to the QB who starts.

“I’m built for this," Keenum added. "I have so many banked reps of situations and outside noise that I just tune it all out and I believe the truth; what my coaches tell me and what my teammates tell me and what I see on film and what I know I can do.

"You just go out there and do the best you can and then you learn from when you don’t succeed. It’s not failure; it’s just an opportunity to learn."

Just blame it all on the Jets. This kind of odd thing just seems to happen to Chicago when they play the Bears. And just be glad it's Johnson coaching the team and not Matt Eberflus. That pregame mess in 2022 with the Jets was only a prelude to what would happen in 2024 for Eberflus' team.

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Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.

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