By any measurement, taking an undrafted Division II quarterback and growing him into someone who can win even a single game as a rookie is a smashing success in player development for the Bears. That alone makes Tyson Bagent a win for them, regardless of what his stats were in his starting debut last week or that they came against the Raiders.
But the consensus from those who saw Bagent from the start, whether it was playing for offensive coordinator Luke Getsy at the -Senior Bowl or his arrival for rookie minicamp, was that he was remarkably ready when he got to Halas Hall. His path is unconventional and unlikely, but he was hardly a project.
As Bagent prepares for his second start Sunday night against the Chargers, the Bears insist the player they’re seeing on game day isn’t vastly different from the one they saw in practice months ago.
“He came in with a knack for throwing the football — pretty polished,” tight end Cole Kmet said. “My brother came out to camp and was like, ‘Dude, that guy has an awesome release.’ And he really does. He’s able to flip hips and get the ball out really nice and create different arm angles when he needs to. It’s cool to see how compact and precise his delivery is.”
Bagent and the Bears have often noted that while he didn’t face elite competition at Shepherd University, he got ample experience.
He threw 2,040 passes (completing 68.6%) for 17,034 yards and 159 touchdowns. For context, the No. 1 pick this year, Bryce Young, threw 949 passes at Alabama.
“I feel like I’ve played a million games at quarterback,” Bagent said, thinking back to starting as a sophomore at Martinsburg (West Virginia) High School. “That’s seven years of starting, understanding what the week of preparation looks like and going through pretty much every concept there is.
“Repetition — the mother of all learners. And I’ve been pleased to have a lot of repetition in my life.”
That experience actually translated well, Bears coaches said.
Getsy, quarterbacks coach Andrew Janocko and assistant Omar Young have mostly emphasized learning the scheme and how to decode NFL defenses during Bagent’s six months in the organization. Coach Matt Eberflus said they were “just tightening” his mechanics, but they liked his form already, and Janocko said, “There were definitely things you saw in there that were a natural football player.”
Bagent’s greatest growth has been mastering the Bears’ protection schemes, including how to adjust them at the line of scrimmage based on what the defense shows, and grasping defensive strategies. Janocko taught him to rehearse that in his offseason workouts “to put yourself as close to the game as you can, even though you might be in [the middle of nowhere], West Virginia.”
The staff handed him his coursework, a guided study on a tablet loaded with video, at the end of minicamp and told him to report back for exams at training camp.
He aced them.
“Each player grasps those concepts differently at a different pace, and he’s one of the guys that grasps it fast,” Eberflus said. “He was able to chunk a bunch of information in a fast period of time, so he was able to learn more of the playbook faster than a lot of people. That’s very important that he had that capacity.”
The team and Bagent get credit for that, but he had one quality that the coaches had nothing to do with: composure. The Bears were smart to see it in their scouting, but Bagent brought that to the table from the beginning.
“There’s a lot of training, but then there’s a level of coolness that you have to possess that is not taught,” Janocko said. “There has to be that exhale when everything’s going on around you. That’s not taught.”
And that’s very valuable, especially on the elevated stage of ‘‘Sunday Night Football.’’
