Saturday night at Lucas Oil Stadium belonged to the Chicago Bears backups.
Two days of joint practices with the Indianapolis Colts gave Bears starters enough work last week that coaches opted to rest them during their second preseason game. So Bears quarterback Justin Fields spent the 24-17 Colts victory on the sideline with most of his fellow starters.
However, there still were some noteworthy developments from players fighting for jobs.
We discuss them in our three-phase review.
Reason for optimism: A solid training camp for undrafted rookie quarterback Tyson Bagent continued with a big performance Saturday.
Bagent, who threw for 17,034 yards and 159 touchdowns at Division II Shepherd, hasn’t appeared overwhelmed by his opportunity as one of three Bears backups to Fields this preseason, along with P.J. Walker and Nathan Peterman.
The Bears put Bagent in second Saturday after Walker because they wanted to see him with the second-team offensive linemen, coach Matt Eberflus said. Bagent helped the Bears march 92 yards on 17 plays to score their first touchdown of the night. In two series, one of which ended at halftime, he completed 9 of 10 passes for 76 yards and had a 2-yard touchdown run.
Eberflus said Bagent displayed good poise, accuracy, timing and decision-making. And he has impressed the coaches with his smarts throughout camp.
“He can chunk in a lot of information,” Eberflus told reporters after the game. “That’s very important as a quarterback to be able to process that. I can see that in the classroom when I’m in there with the quarterbacks. Then there’s the functional intelligence and being able to get out in the walk-throughs and go through the process of it. And then now he has taken a pretty good step forward both in training camp and also today.”
Bagent’s performances this preseason, including completing 4 of 5 passes for 37 yards in the first game, are enough to spark intrigue about if — and how — the Bears might try to keep him around during the regular season.
“To me, it’s about execution,” Eberflus said. “If you can execute, it doesn’t matter if you’re 28 or 23. It doesn’t matter to me. I’m comfortable.”
On Bagent’s touchdown drive, rookie running back Roschon Johnson also continued to impress with his physical running style. Johnson had seven carries for 32 yards and one 11-yard catch.
“He was really good tonight with his cutting and his reading of the holes,” Eberflus said. “And I thought he really got north a bunch of times and put his pads down.”
Reason for concern: Walker, who played in 15 games for the Carolina Panthers the last three seasons, signed a two-year, $4.15 million contract with the Bears in the offseason to back up Fields. But he has struggled at times during camp, and the offense was ineffective during his two series.
Walker completed 1 of 4 passes for 6 yards. The Bears went three-and-out in their first drive with Walker, which included an Equanimeous St. Brown drop. They nearly got to midfield on the second drive, but Walker was sacked on second and third down to end it.
The contrast in Walker’s performance and Bagent’s prompted questions to Eberflus about whether there’s a competition to be the Bears’ backup quarterback. Eberflus often says positions are open to competition, and he used the same refrain Saturday night, saying “everything is open right now.”
“I think if you close your mind off to that, you might be missing something,” Eberflus said. “You’ve got to let it play itself out is what we say as coaches. Don’t predetermine things. Let things play out.”
Worth noting: Wide receiver Daurice Fountain, who was on the Bears practice squad last season, had one of the plays of the game. He caught a 35-yard touchdown pass from Peterman, making the play behind Colts cornerback Darius Rush as they tumbled to the ground in the right corner of the end zone.
Fountain, whom Eberflus and general manager Ryan Poles knew from his previous stops with the Indianapolis Colts and Kansas City Chiefs, led the Bears with five catches for 86 yards. The Bears wide receivers room is pretty crowded in front of Fountain — with Velus Jones Jr., Tyler Scott, St. Brown and Dante Pettis all vying for roster spots behind DJ Moore, Darnell Mooney and Chase Claypool — but Fountain has made some nice plays this preseason.
Reason for optimism: The Bears didn’t get to the quarterback like they did in the first game against the Tennessee Titans, when they had eight sacks. They had only one sack Saturday playing without their starting four defensive linemen. But a couple of backups made big plays, advancing a positive outlook when it comes to depth on the defensive line.
Defensive end Terrell Lewis had a strip-sack against Colts quarterback Sam Ehlinger, though the Colts recovered the fumble. That gave Lewis three sacks and two forced fumbles in two preseason games.
“Those are the game-changer plays,” Lewis told reporters of the strip-sack. “I’ve been around a lot of great players and it’s easy to get a sack. But when you take it to the next level, I feel like sack-fumbles, those are the ways you impact the game and help your team win and flip the field. Those are big plays.”
Rookie defensive tackle Zacch Pickens also had three tackles, including a tackle for a loss, and a quarterback hit. In the opener, Pickens had a sack and a fumble recovery.
“We’ve got a lot of explosive guys,” Lewis said. “Even Justin Jones, Dex (Gervon Dexter Sr.) and Zacch, I feel like those are young guys that as they continue to keep playing, they’ve got the talent to produce not only in the run game, but then also in the passing game too. And then me and (starter Yannick Ngakoue), we’ve got history. He’s from the same area as me, so that’s kind of like a dream come true, me and him coming off the same line.”
Reason for concern: The main cause of worry for the Bears defense remains the high number of key starters who have been out with injury, most recently linebacker Tremaine Edmunds and safeties Jaquan Brisker and Eddie Jackson. Eberflus continues to deem the injuries not long-term, so it will be noteworthy to see if any of the three return this week ahead of the final preseason game against the Buffalo Bills.
Rookie cornerback Tyrique Stevenson, who has been in competition with rookie Terell Smith, was one of the few projected starters to get on the field Saturday, and he had two plays he would like to get back.
On the Colts’ second-quarter touchdown drive, Gardner Minshew’s pass sailed through Stevenson’s hands and into the grasp of Juwann Winfree, who was behind him in the end zone for a 4-yard touchdown catch. It was the second time Stevenson thought he should have had an interception in two weeks after settling for a pass breakup in his preseason debut.
“Everything was happening too fast,” Stevenson told reporters. “I just looked up and the ball was coming and just happened to not shoot my hands up fast enough.”
Stevenson also was called for his second unnecessary roughness penalty in two weeks. The call in the opener was questionable, but on Saturday, Stevenson threw running back Kenyan Drake to the ground out of bounds. He said he needs to “just be a little bit smarter” on such plays.
“I could have been better with my head across the ball, so I could see where I was at on the field,” Stevenson said. “Once I looked up and he was heading to the ground, I realized we were in the white. So just got to be a better rookie and have a lot more smarter plays and not cause the team any harmful penalties.”
Worth noting: Undrafted rookie linebacker Micah Baskerville jumped up to deflect Minshew’s pass in the first quarter, and safety A.J. Thomas nearly intercepted it, but the ball bounced to the ground before he could gain control. Thomas had an interception in the first preseason game.
Thomas led the Bears with five tackles. Baskerville had three and a special teams tackle when he took down kick returner Josh Downs at the 18-yard line to open the game.
Reason for optimism: Bears kicker Cairo Santos continued his perfect preseason by making a 50-yard field goal and two extra points.
Santos has made all four of his field-goal attempts and all four of his extra-point attempts this preseason.
Reason for concern: Bears returner Velus Jones Jr. stood on the sideline for the game, often chatting with Fields, after he missed Thursday’s practice with an undisclosed injury. Jones probably could have used the work after he tried to catch a punt off the bounce and then fumbled it in the preseason opener.
Rookie Tyler Scott, who has been getting return work this preseason, also was sidelined.
Those are not good developments for a team that still is sorting through its options for returners. Dante Pettis and Nsimba Webster both were back for punts Saturday. Joe Reed handled kickoff returns, with four for 99 yards.
Worth noting: Pettis, who is fighting for a roster spot, was the punt returner in the first half but told a Tribune reporter after the game that he couldn’t speak to the media because he had an injury.
Pettis, who has been reliable at catching punts but is not as flashy as a returner as Jones, had two punt returns for 5 total yards.