Game Management Nets Tyson Bagent a Win

There should be no talk about Justin Fields losing his starting job.

There is no need.

Bears coach Matt Eberflus already made this entirely clear after Sunday's 30-12 victory over the Las Vegas Raiders.

The win was rookie Tyson Bagent coming in as backup, doing what was asked and the Bears move on hoping to continue their improvement, 2-5 on the year, still without their injured starter.

At least they know they have a capable backup. No one is talking about Brock Purdy 2.0, at least at this point.

"Yeah, Justin is our starting quarterback," Eberflus said. "Again, Tyson is the backup, came in and did a nice job. Again, we don't know where Justin is.

"We'll see where it (the injured thumb) is. We don't know if it's a week-to-week thing. We'll assess it more tomorrow."

A 162-yard passing effort with a touchdown and no turnovers is fine when a team is dominating the line of scrimmage. Against a team better than the baffling Las Vegas Raiders, it's probably insufficient.

The Bears didn't throw it downfield. They had no pass plays longer than 17 yards but did get DJ Moore and Darnell Mooney involved as receivers, Moore with eight catches for just 54 yards and Mooney with four catches for 32.

No catches for tight ends besides 39-year-old Marcedes Lewis with a 16-yarder on a perfectly executed screen.

But in his very first NFL start Bagent was cool, confident, efficient and a winner.

The last word shouldn't be lightly disregarded, considering the Bears are 6-25 in games Fields starts.

Instead of asking whether Bagent is capable of big plays downfield and beating good teams, maybe it's more relevant to wonder if Fields is capable of the little plays and winning games efficiently the way Bagent was on Sunday.

After all, the point of the game is to win on Sundays, Mondays and Thursdays in the NFL, and not to have a lot of fantasy points while losing games.

Bagent would have nothing of the talk about him becoming the starter. He realized his role and was commending Fields afterward for his help on the sideline.

"You know, I couldn't really ask much more from him," Bagent said. "The QB room as a whole, Justin and Nate (Peterman), when I talk about people that rally behind me and had my back throughout the week, just different things to look at and just with the amount of experience that they have, Justin and Nate were pivotal in how we were able to execute today and the way I played today on the field."

Peterman even got on the field himself for an ill-fated 55-yard Hail Mary pass attempt in place of Bagent. Perhaps it was because he has a better arm?

Don't tell that to Bagent.

"Yeah, I mean, I've got a cannon," Bagent said, causing laughter in the media corps.

Once the cackling subsided, Bagent continued.

"Nate's got a very powerful arm as well," he said. "But I like to think that I've got an extremely strong arm and the ball most definitely would have got there. But it would with me, too, so I have obviously no problem that."

What Bagent did do was manage the game in the classic mold of Shane Matthews or Steve Fuller, even vintage early Kyle Orton. It was much better than Craig Krenzel, who actually had a winning record as a starter in one season (3-2).

Bagent finished with a 97.2 passer rating on 21 of 29 for 162 yards, took one sack and dodged a few others. He scrambled for 24 yards on three tries, showing he could imitate Fields a little.

He also ran a first-quarter QB sneak for a first down but instead of the tush push straight up the middle, he went out by the guard and tackle to pick it up. Doing this let him avoid Maxx Crosby, who actually dove over the pile anticipating a tush push only to whiff with Bagent out to the side.

"I think our whole game plan was centered around where he was on the field. It was one of those things where we ran a lot of sneaks this year, so being able to sneak it in the B-gap—just because they want to take the A gaps away—and take a slide step to the right or left depending on which one looks better is kind of something we talked about really before the game. Just be ready to execute the Q sneak in the B-gap other than the A-gap."

Bagent enjoyed the moment afterward. He got a big hug from his father, Travis, the former world champion arm wrestler, after his press conference, and had a regular family reunion going on in the players family area outside the locker rooms.

Asked how many family members he had to buy tickets for in his first start, Bagent laughed.

"A lot," he said. "My paycheck probably won't look the same this week. So I had a lot of people here."

It was all enough to boost the confidence of any player, rookies especially. Or was it?

"You shouldn't allow for your confidence to rise or drop, win or lose," Bagent said. "You just kind of, you know, play the next play as a lot of people like to say, and that's what I look forward to doing this next coming week."

That is, whether he's the starter for another game or not.

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