Tyson Bagent went into the Bears’ preseason opener with one clear mission hanging over him: make himself look like a quarterback another team might actually pay for. Instead, he came out of it with more questions than momentum.
Chicago had spent the offseason signaling it would listen if someone wanted to make Bagent a starter. That window never seemed to open, and after this first preseason showing, it’s even harder to picture a team giving the Bears anything meaningful for him. Bagent’s NFL resume already includes three touchdowns and six interceptions, and the opener didn’t do much to change the conversation.
The start was rough. Bagent opened with back-to-back three-and-outs and then tossed an interception.
Only once the defense began rolling in its depth players did he settle in and find the end zone, hitting a touchdown near the end of the first half. But one scoring drive against backups, paired with a 59% completion rate, isn’t the kind of performance that sends teams scrambling to the phone.
Around the league, other young quarterbacks made stronger first impressions. The Pittsburgh Steelers saw their rookie throw for 153 yards and two touchdowns while completing 76% of his passes in his NFL debut, and that apparently closed the door on any lingering Bagent talk there. The New York Jets also had rookie Cade Klubnik complete 71% of his passes and average eight yards per attempt in his debut.
Bagent’s own preseason track record doesn’t exactly help his case, either. He averages 7.2 yards per attempt in preseason games and finished the opener at 7.7. That’s not nothing, but it’s not enough to make him a hot commodity when other teams are looking at more convincing options.
Anthony Richardson also turned in a strong showing for the Colts, and Carson Beck had a promising debut in Arizona. Meanwhile, the Browns had just watched Bagent struggle in the first half of a preseason game against them, another reminder of how difficult it would be to sell him as a valuable trade target.
For all the Bears’ talk this offseason, the message seems clear now: they were willing to listen, but the market never came close to matching their hopes.
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