Tyson Bagent is the hot story of the preseason for the Chicago Bears. Nobody expected somebody to challenge P.J. Walker for the backup job after he signed a two-year deal for $4 million. That certainly wasn’t the case when the Bears signed Bagent as an undrafted rookie in May. They saw him as depth with developmental upside. One month later and things have changed. Following a great performance in Indianapolis, head coach Matt Eberflus admitted that the backup job behind Justin Fields is no longer set in stone. It’s wide open.
A few days later, the head coach had a chance to backpedal from those comments. One would understand. He was caught up in the moment, appreciating what the rookie had done. Nope. Eberflus reinforced those comments with an even clearer statement on Thursday. This is a competition. He and the coaches are treating as such. Walker is guaranteed nothing. If he wants to get that job he signed for, he’ll have to earn it. Bagent will be given every opportunity to swipe it from him this weekend against Buffalo.
“That’s still a competition. As we’ve said all along, and we’re open to that. That’s exciting. And that was created. It wasn’t like we created it — when I say we, the coaching staff. That was created by pure competition. Like I said, if you keep an open mind and you let things play out, then good things will happen. A lot of times, I’ve seen that coaches predetermine things a lot of times, and we just based it on performances, and we’re going to continue to do that and let the competition play itself out.”
Matt Eberflus is letting sanity prevail.
One of the worst mistakes a head coach makes too often is letting a big investment get in the way of what’s right for the team. Yes, the Bears paid a decent amount of money for Walker. That shouldn’t matter. If Bagent is the better player, that roster spot belongs to him. By all accounts, the rookie has consistently looked sharper both in practice and the preseason for the past few weeks. Eberflus has said from the start that his job is to get the 53 best players on the roster going into each season.
It will be interesting to see how he distributes snaps on Saturday. Justin Fields figures to get at least a quarter of work with the starters. After that, he may split the rest between Walker and Bagent to see who can take advantage of this final opportunity. It brings some genuine excitement to an otherwise meaningless game. Matt Eberflus may not have expected this situation to arise, but he’s handling it better than other previous Bears head coaches would’ve.
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