Bears QB Justin Fields Dealing With Dislocated Thumb, Doubtful For Week 7
OCTOBER 16: When speaking publicly about Fields’ injury, head coach Matt Eberflus confirmed the 24-year-old is dealing with a dislocated thumb. Fields is doubtful to play in Week 7, but more clarity on his return timetable will likely not emerge until later in the week, including a decision on whether or not surgery will be in play (h/t ESPN’s Courtney Cronin). Much will depend on the swelling in the affected thumb, but for now Bagent can be penciled in as Chicago’s starter moving forward.
OCTOBER 15: Early into the second half of the Bears’ loss to the Vikings today, third-year quarterback Justin Fields was forced out of the game with an injury to his throwing hand. Specifically, according Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk, the injury was to Fields’ thumb, affecting his grip on the football. Fields was unable to effectively grip the ball and spent the remainder of the game on the sideline as a result. 
Fields third year in the NFL started off in a rocky manner as fans continued to question his effectiveness as an NFL starter. Three straight losses to open the year while throwing three touchdowns to five interceptions and only averaging 175.33 passing yards per game only added to the mounting critiques.
In the team’s past two contests leading up to today’s game, though, Fields was beginning to show the promise becoming of his high draft status. In a close loss and a big first win of the season, Fields threw eight touchdowns to one interception while averaging 308.5 passing yards per game. Coming off those two strong performances, a divisional contest against the struggling Vikings was becoming a game to watch for Fields. Unfortunately, the injury to his hand kept him from continuing that recent success with a big second half.
In his absence, Chicago put in undrafted rookie quarterback Tyson Bagent out of Shepherd University. In his NFL debut, Bagent was mostly efficient, aside from a desperation interception in the game’s dying moments, while being mostly conservative as a substitute. After a critical fumble that ended up being returned for a touchdown, Bagent wasn’t able to erase the Bears’ 13-point deficit, but he did lead the team on a touchdown drive to make it a one-score game.
According to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, head coach Matt Eberflus disclosed that the X-rays on Fields’ hand were negative, indicating no broken bones. He will undergo an MRI tomorrow in order to determine if there is any other potential damage that may take time to recover from. If the MRI turns up something that will force Fields to miss time, or if Fields is still struggling to grip the ball next week, Bagent may hear his name called again especially if fellow backup Nathan Peterman remains unavailable.
Bears Make WR Chase Claypool A Healthy Scratch In Week 4, Actively Trying To Trade Him
6:00pm: There are conflicting reports coming out of Chicago this afternoon following the team’s crushing loss to the previously 0-3 Broncos. According to ESPN’s Courtney Cronin, head coach Matt Eberflus told the media that the decision for Claypool not to attend “today’s game after being made inactive was the wide receiver’s choice,” insinuating that the Bears didn’t instruct the beleaguered player to stay away.
Another source, Adam Jahns of The Athletic, provided an updated report later in the afternoon that a team spokesperson clarified the opposite claim, explaining that the Bears did, in fact, ask Claypool to stay home, away from the game, today.
There is clearly an extreme amount of tension building between the two parties, creating a schism that is starting to seem impossible to span. Eberflus claimed that he anticipates seeing Claypool back in the building tomorrow, but it’s unclear if the two sides will be able to come to a working agreement.
11:45am: Poles is actively trying to trade Claypool, as NFL insider Jordan Schultz reports. Poles is calling teams he believes may be in the market for a receiver and is looking for a fifth- or sixth-round pick in return.
11:06am: The Bears have made wide receiver Chase Claypool a healthy scratch for their Week 4 game against the Broncos (Ian Rapoport of NFL.com first reported the team’s plan to make Claypool inactive). Fellow wideout Equanimeous St. Brown, on the heels of a strong week of practice, will be active for the first time in 2023.
This represents another low in a disappointing Chicago tenure for Claypool. The former second-round pick of the Steelers, who was a focal point of Pittsburgh’s offense over the 2020-21 campaigns, was shipped to the Bears in advance of last year’s trade deadline in exchange for what turned out to be the No. 32 overall pick of the 2023 draft (which the Steelers used to selected Joey Porter Jr.).
Bears GM Ryan Poles added Claypool in an effort to surround quarterback Justin Fields with more receiving talent, an effort that continued with this offseason’s acquisition of D.J. Moore. However, in the 10 games that Claypool has played for Chicago, he has amassed just 18 catches for 191 yards and one touchdown.
As Patrick Finley of the Chicago Sun-Times details, Claypool was criticized by his coaches and teammates for not showing enough effort in the Bears’ 2023 regular season opener against the Packers. Prior to the club’s Week 2 game versus the Bucs, Poles said that he expected Claypool to make changes.
“And if he doesn’t,” Poles said, “then we’ll have to figure out what we’re going to do after that.”
While Claypool exhibited better effort in that matchup with Tampa Bay, catching three balls for 36 yards and a score, he caught just one pass for 15 yards in the Bears’ Week 3 drubbing at the hands of the Chiefs despite playing in 86% of the team’s offensive snaps. To be fair, the Kansas City loss was nightmarish for the entire team, but Claypool has obviously fallen out of the good graces of his coaching staff.
Claypool is likewise not too fond of the staff at the moment. When asked this past week if he believed he was being put in the best position to succeed, the Notre Dame product paused for seven seconds before saying, “no.”
“Obviously, there’s other places,” Claypool added. “You can say, ‘Oh, I want to be on the best offense with the highest passing yards,’ but that doesn’t happen in football. You just have to make do with what you’ve got.”
As Finley notes, it is unclear whether Claypool knew that he was being benched when he made those comments, or if the comments contributed to his benching. Either way, it is not a good look for a contract-year player to be scratched by a team that is desperate for offensive production. It is fair to wonder if the Bears will seek to move Claypool at this year’s deadline, though they will obviously not come close to recouping their own investment in him if they do put him on the block.
In related news, the Bears are elevating Tyson Bagent to the QB2 role behind Fields, according to Rapoport. Bagent, an undrafted free agent out of D-II Shepherd University, had an impressive summer and was rumored to be in the running for the backup job when the season got underway. While Chicago installed veteran Nathan Peterman as Fields’ clipboard holder for the first few weeks of the campaign, Bagent has done enough to merit a promotion.
Rapoport made it clear that the move does not impact Fields’ standing with the team.
Latest On Bears’ Backup QB Situation
SEPTEMBER 8: As expected, Eberflus said on Friday that it will indeed be Peterman backing up Fields when the Bears host the Packers on Sunday. The veteran will thus be turned to if anything should happen to Chicago’s starter during the game. Bagent will be designated the emergency third quarterback, meaning he will be in uniform without counting as part of the team’s gameday lineup. Only injuries to Fields and Peterman would allow the rookie to enter the game, though, and a return from either would obligate Bagent to head back to the sidelines.
SEPTEMBER 3: The Bears only had two quarterbacks on their initial 53-man roster after deciding to release both P.J. Walker and Nathan Peterman. The decision to cut the latter proved to be a paper transaction, though, and he is again on the active roster. 
As a result, questions have been raised about how the backup spot will shake out behind Justin Fields. The QB2 role was up for grabs during training camp and the preseason, and the play of undrafted rookie Tyson Bagent earned him at least a roster spot to start the year. He may not see backup duties right away, however.
“We have not decided that,” head coach Matt Eberflus said, via Brad Biggs of the Chicago Tribune, when asked about who will dress behind Fields in Week 1. “We’re sure glad to have [Peterman] back. He’s really good for that room. Him and Justin learned the offense together, so to speak, so they’re speaking the same language. So they understand it really well. It’s good to have him in the room.”
Peterman’s inclusion on the active roster – as opposed to the practice squad – could suggest he is in line to serve as the backup at least early in the season. Biggs predicts that the 29-year-old will start the campaign in the No. 2 role, which would relegate Bagent to emergency QB duties. Teams are allowed to carry three signal-callers on the roster while still only dressing two on gamedays. Injuries to the starter and backup are required for the third-stringer to be allowed to enter the game, however.
As Biggs notes, Bagent could move himself past Peterman while continuing to impress in practice during the season while the more experienced option works as a fill-in option. Things could change quickly from the presumed depth chart in short order, and Eberflus is not (at least publicly) prepared to declare how the team will proceed at the position to start the year.
“We wanted to secure him in that situation,” he said of Peterman’s release and re-signing. “We don’t know what’s going to happen in the future with who’s going to be up for the game, who’s going to be the backup. We’ll decide that as we go.”
Bears To Release QB Nathan Peterman
The Bears have now jettisoned both the veteran quarterbacks behind Justin Fields on their depth chart. Following P.J. Walker‘s release, Chicago will cut Nathan Peterman, Tom Pelissero of NFL.com tweets.
This may not be the end of the road for the Bears and Peterman. They would like to bring him back on a practice squad deal, per Pelissero. A seventh-year veteran who has settled into a reserve role since a rough stretch of early-career game cameos, Peterman spent last season with the Bears.
More interestingly, the Bears now have only rookie UDFA Tyson Bagent behind Fields on their active roster. With Walker and Peterman off the 53-man roster, Bagent has been the Bears’ top backup option during training camp and the preseason, ESPN’s Courtney Cronin adds. It would still qualify as unusual to give this job to a rookie UDFA out of a Division II program (Shepherd), but unless the Bears add another arm on the waiver wire or in free agency between now and Week 1, Bagent is on track to be a surprising QB2.
Peterman found himself in the same transaction last year. The Bears were a bit deeper at quarterback in 2022, rostering Trevor Siemian as well. But they prioritized Peterman via a P-squad deal. This arrangement led to Peterman starting a rather important game — for draft purposes — last season. The ex-Bills draftee completed 11 of 19 passes for 114 yards in a Week 18 loss to the Vikings — a defeat that ended up securing Chicago the No. 1 overall pick. Betting on Fields, the Ryan Poles regime traded the pick to the Panthers for a package that will help the team bolster its roster around Fields.
That game marked Peterman’s first start since his disastrous Buffalo work. Despite that historically bad four-start sample in Buffalo, Peterman has managed to remain a relatively coveted commodity. He spent nearly four years as a Raiders backup, covering almost all of Jon Gruden’s second stay with the team, and has another opportunity awaiting ahead of his age-29 season.
Bears Conducting Backup Quarterback Competition?
The top spot on the Bears’ quarterback depth chart, as confirmed by their handling of the 2023 offseason, belongs to Justin Fields. Despite the identity of his backup appearing clear before training camp and the preseason began, that may not be the case. 
Chicago inked P.J. Walker to a two-year deal including $2MM guaranteed in free agency. That move seemed to place the 28-year-old in prime position to secure the QB2 role behind Fields, but camp practices and exhibition contests have not seen Walker perform well enough to cement his status with the team. That has opened the door to a competition for the job.
“I would just say everything is open right now, and it’s not just that position, it’s every position,” head coach Matt Eberflus said when asked about Walker and the quarterback spot. “If the guy is in a competition, everybody can look at the roster and see who’s in a competition. Those are all going to be open. I think if you close your mind off to that, you might be missing on something” (Twitter links via Brad Biggs of the Chicago Tribune).
While Walker has underperformed so far during the summer, undrafted rookie Tyson Bagent has drawn attention for his play when given an opportunity. The latter completed nine of 10 passes for 76 scoreless passing yards during last night’s preseason game against the Colts, adding a rushing touchdown. That could point to a degree of upside compared to Walker, who started seven games in Carolina (including five in 2022) and struggled to put up noteworthy numbers across his three-year Panthers tenure.
Nathan Peterman is also in the fold for the Bears, meaning he could be a QB2 candidate depending on how the remainder of August plays out. Chicago made a low-cost investment in Peterman for the second straight year this offseason, after the former Bills draftee made three appearances and one start in 2022. The Bears’ final preseason contest will no doubt go a long way in determining the final pecking order under center. As things currently stand, though, Walker’s grip on the backup spot does not appear to be a firm one.
Bears Sign 14 UDFAs
After adding 10 rookies via the draft, the Bears have added another 14 first-year players via free agency. The Bears announced that they have signed 14 undrafted free agents:
- OL Nick Amoah (UC Davis)
- QB Tyson Bagent (Shepherd)
- LB Micah Baskerville (LSU)
- DB Justin Broiles (Oklahoma)
- FB Robert Burns (Connecticut)
- TE Damien Caffrey (Stony Brook)
- DB Macon Clark (Tulane)
- WR Aron Cruickshank (Rutgers)
- DL Jalen Harris (Arizona)
- OL Bobby Haskins (USC)
- OL Gabriel Houy (Pitt)
- OL Lorenz Metz (Cincinnati)
- WR Thyrick Pitts (Delaware)
- K Andre Szmyt (Syracuse)
Tyson Bagent had a prolific career at Shepherd, tossing 159 touchdowns in 53 games. The 6-foot-3 prospect has the size of a typical NFL quarterback, but his questionable decision-making and arm strength (coupled with his Division II status) led to him going undrafted. Bears offensive coordinator Luke Getsy got a closeup view of Bagent during the Senior Bowl.
Andre Szmyt left Syracuse as the school’s all-time leader in scoring. He converted 81 percent of his field goal attempts in college and 91 percent of his kicks from within 40 yards. Cairo Santos has connected on 89.7 percent of his FGAs over the past three seasons with the Bears, but the rookie should provide the veteran with a bit of competition in training camp.
Jalen Harris is the son of former Bears draft pick Sean Harris. The defensive lineman compiled 171 tackles, 26 tackles for loss, and 14 sacks in 56 games at Arizona before going undrafted last weekend. The rookie can find a role for himself as an edge on the Bears, with DeMarcus Walker, Rasheem Green, Trevis Gipson, and Dominique Robinson providing competition for the roster spots.