Quarterbacks Williams, Bagent Build Confidence For Bears’ Future

Scoff, if you will. It’s too early to know how things will look after the Bears’ opener on Monday Night Football. The Vikings have plans of their own, after all.

But entering the last of three exhibition games, Caleb Williams, Tyson Bagent and offensive wizard Ben Johnson have created at least as much excitement about the quarterback position as the franchise has known since 2009.

That was the year Jerry Angelo traded for a 26-year-old Jay Cutler, who was coming off a 4526-yard passing season in Denver. You probably remember how that worked out, as they still haven’t had a 4,000-yard season by a quarterback.

But Williams and Bagent, the third-year backup, executed the offense installed by their new head coach with precision in last week’s 38-0 victory over Buffalo. While Williams was working with the first team offense against the Bills’ backups, he was sharp in putting together a 130.0 quarterback rating and an 88.9 grade from Pro Football Focus.

This was in contrast to the headlines earlier in camp, which chronicled more down days than good ones for the first overall pick in the 2024 draft. But you wonder if that feedback was more about the standard Johnson has set for Williams than his play.

“He’s really been locked in,” Johnson said after the Buffalo game. “Anytime you’re a young player, there’s usually a couple of steps forward and one step back. And that’s really been the story of this training camp. He and I have been really open and honest about it as we’ve gone through. And he’s had some really good practices, and he’s had a couple where, it’s not good enough. I thought really the three days of practice we had this week and this game were the most he’s stacked up good days in a row right now. The challenge is going to be keep pushing that direction.”

Williams’ rookie season was largely seen as a disappointment. He guided the Bears to a 5-12 record while Jayden Daniels, selected a pick later, led Washington to a 12-5 record and two postseason victories.

But given the volume of sacks (an NFL-high 68), disrupting drives and creating desperation, it’s worth noting he threw for 20 touchdowns while only being intercepted six times. Peyton Manning was famously intercepted 28 times while throwing for 26 touchdowns as a rookie in Indianapolis.

While paying heavily to hire Johnson away from the division rival Detroit Lions, Bears General Manager Ryan Poles didn’t stop there He focused his off-season strategy around making Williams’ life easier, upgrading the ineffective offensive line, spending the first two picks of the draft on targets Colston Loveland and Luther Burden III and signing the 37-year-old Case Keenum to add experience to the quarterback room.

The biggest acquisition for the line, All-Pro guard Joe Thuney, hasn’t played in a game yet. But Williams wasn’t under much pressure last Sunday, in large part because his timing was so sharp on passes to Loveland, Cole Kmet, DJ Moore and Olamide Zaccheaus.

“To a month ago, I think I’ve grown a lot,” Williams told reporters after the Buffalo game. “Now, my mindset is to keep growing. It’s been my mindset since I’ve been a little child, to keep growing. Where I see myself, I think the idea is to be able to handle every single thing that I can and everything that Ben says I should be able to handle. If that’s handling everything at the line, handling everything and taking things off of other people’s plates, that’s what it is. Being able to do that consistently over the next couple of years is important for me.”

While Bagent was undrafted in 2023 after setting record for Shepherd University, he has quickly earned the confidence of Poles and the coaches. He guided the Bears to a 2-2 record in four starts in his rookie season when Justin Fields was unavailable and has looked sharp running Johnson’s offense in camp.

PFF gave Bagent an 80.3 grade against Buffalo, when he was 13-for-22 for 196 yards and a touchdown. He was 13-for-19 for 103 yards, with one touchdown and one interception in a 24-24 tie with Miami.

Poles rewarded Bagent with a two-year, $10 million extension this week. He had received only $25,000 guaranteed in 2023 — he turned down more lucrative offers elsewhere because of the opportunity he saw in Chicago — and now is under contract through 2027. Williams’ rookie contract runs through ’27 with the likelihood of a fifth-year option for ’28 being exercised if he hasn’t been signed to an extension of his own.

Williams appears durable. He took all but 13 of 1133 quarterback snaps last season. But quarterback depth can be vital for a team.

Consider Cutler’s eight-year run in Chicago. He played all 16 games only in his first season (2009), then missed 26 games the next seven seasons.

Here’s the list of replacement quarterbacks: Todd Collins, Caleb Hanie, Josh McCown (two stints), Jason Campbell, Jimmy Clausen, Brian Hoyer and Matt Barkley. The Bears were 7-19 behind Cutler’s backups (and 51-51 with Cutler starting).

Poles invested in Bagent because he believes the Bears can avoid that steep drop-off if Williams becomes unavailable, whether for one game or a stretch of games. Bagent turned down a chance at free agency next March because he believes Johnson will help him continue to improve.

Johnson sees Bagent as a future NFL starter. “I’ve really been blown away by his approach from the spring to the start of camp to where we are now. He does a tremendous job knowing what to do, how to do it and getting it done. … I think we actually have one of the best (quarterback) rooms in the NFL, certainly that I’ve been around in my career, from top to bottom.”

Williams gets his first chance to play opposite Patrick Mahomes on Friday night, when the Bears travel to Kansas City for their final preseason game. He’ll likely only play one or two series, making this a chance to evaluate Chicago’s quarterback depth against the Chiefs’ quarterback depth. That’s quite a thought, in and of itself.