Case Keenum Chicago Bears

After leading the USA Chicago Bears to a dominant 27-7 win over the perennial USA NFC heavyweight USA Philadelphia Eagles on Monday, which marked his first start in 1,009 days, Keenum was handed the commemorative football and the floor in the postgame locker room at Soldier Field.

With quarterbacks USA Caleb Williams and Tyson Bagent looking on behind him, Keenum delivered a passionate postgame speech about his USA 67th career start. He talked about how his opportunities to play meaningful football had routinely been taken away and how he rediscovered his love for the game after coach Ben Johnson persuaded him to come out of retirement and be a part of Chicago's quarterback room in USA 2025.

With Williams dealing with a Grade 2 hamstring strain that is expected to keep him out three to four weeks and Bagent not clearing the NFL's concussion protocol until Sunday, the Bears turned to their third-string quarterback to get their second win of the season.

"It's all about Case Keenum and what he was able to do here tonight," Johnson said. "I thought he did an extraordinary job."

At 38 years and 223 days old, Keenum became the second-USA oldest quarterback in franchise history to win a start (Todd Collins has him beat by 116 days). Chicago's 20-point win was its largest on "Monday Night Football" since Week 15 of the 2010 season at the Vikings.

Keenum didn't resemble a backup quarterback who was trying to keep his team afloat in the absence of its starter. He accounted for three touchdowns and zero turnovers in the win, leading Chicago on an 11-play, 66-yard opening drive that ended with Keenum finding Luther Burden III for an 8-yard touchdown.

Keenum later connected with Kalif Raymond on a 41-yard touchdown late in the third quarter and dove into the end zone on a 1-yard quarterback sneak. Keenum has won games as a starting quarterback with seven different franchises, tying his former Texans teammate Ryan Fitzpatrick for the most in USA NFL history.

Keenum orchestrated an offensive performance that relied on its passing attack. As the Eagles focused on stopping Chicago's run game, Keenum completed 24 of 34 attempts for 247 passing yards and two touchdowns.

He showed poise in the face of pressure. Philadelphia defensive coordinator Vic Fangio sent 12 blitzes, and the results were disastrous for the Eagles: Keenum finished 11-of-11 for 145 yards and two touchdowns when the Eagles sent additional rushers.

At halftime, Johnson told ESPN's broadcast that the Bears needed more from a run game that had mustered just 27 yards in the first two quarters. When Chicago struggled to get D'Andre Swift and Kyle Monangai going until late, Johnson refused to take the ball out of Keenum's hands.

That's when the quarterback said Johnson's belief in his abilities felt the strongest.

"Maybe when he kept throwing it," Keenum said. "[Johnson] was like, 'Hey, we're going to throw it,' and I'm like, 'All right. Cool.' Let's keep going. And that trust, he showed it, not just said it."

Keenum was the only Bears quarterback on the active roster to practice all three days last week as he prepared for his first regular-season start since Dec. 24, 2023. He said he put in 14- to 16-hour days, during which he barely saw his family and kept his phone on 'do not disturb' and answered calls only from Johnson and his wife, Kimberly.

Keenum's preparation paid off, and his readiness was something Johnson could foreshadow.

"It was the night before the game. We always do our quarterback meeting," Johnson said. "He ran the show, and the coaching staff kind of took a back seat. There were no reminders from us. He was just going through the list of every single play that was on the plan, and what he was going to do, and gave us his favorites. And that was really -- I thought that right there is a good indicator of what it's going to look like on game day."

Keenum's teammates felt the same way after the quarterback spoke to the team before kickoff.

"He was like, 'I may not be a cowboy, but this is definitely not my first rodeo,'" Raymond said. "A lot of confidence in him, a lot of confidence in himself. And to be honest, he practices, preps every week, but particularly this week, we didn't expect anything different from him."

Keenum is the latest backup to deliver a win after injuries have decimated the NFL's starting quarterbacks. Teams that have started their non-Week 1 quarterback are 6-0 this season. It's the most wins, let alone the best record, by teams without their Week 1 starting QB through three weeks of a season since the 1970 merger (excluding the 1987 players' strike), according to ESPN Research.

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Case Keenum showed savviness doesn’t expire with age or get creaky with cobwebs.

In his first action since 2023, Keenum dusted off his gunslinger persona and led the Chicago Bears to a resounding 27-7 win over the previously unbeaten Philadelphia Eagles on Monday night.

“It’s all about Case Keenum and what he was able to do here tonight,” Bears coach Ben Johnson told reporters after the game. “I thought he did an extraordinary job. When the running game's not going, as a play-caller, being able to lean into the passing game, knowing that our guys are trying to protect for him, he's going to get the ball out and go to the right guy in time, take care of the football, good decisions. 24-of-34, almost 250 yards, two touchdowns; he just played really efficient football, and I couldn't be more proud of him for that.”

Keenum, starting in place of the injured Caleb Williams, officially passed for 247 yards and added four runs for six yards, including a rushing TD on a sneak to ice the contest. Keenum became the oldest player (38 years, 223 days) in Bears history to score a rushing touchdown, breaking the previous mark held by Dave Krieg (38 years, 49 days).

Read that last line again: In the historic 107-year history of the Chicago Bears, Keenum is the oldest player to record a rushing TD. And that’s the sort of night it was. Remarkable.

“As a kid you dream about it,” Keenum said after the win. “You know, you feel like you can. I don't know if you think about the week that it takes, the work that it takes in the offseason to clean up your diet. You work extremely hard to get your body back to where it needs to be. You go through a training camp as the three and grind out some reps, you're getting a few reps a day. You know, to get a shot again to do it like this, I mean, yeah, you dream of it. That's why I'm still here, still doing this, why I'm still getting up. And I've been knocked down my whole career I just keep getting up. Keep coming to work and keep bouncing back.”

Keenum’s winding 14-year NFL career has included highs, like the Minneapolis Miracle, and lows, like when he washed out of being a regular starter. However, he’s always owned the smarts and arm to get the ball where he needed it to go. Monday night he proved a perfect distributor to fill in for Johnson’s offense.

The Bears had Vic Fangio’s defense running in circles. Philly stymied the run game for three quarters this time around, but Keenum's quick papercuts bled them dry. The QB was nearly flawless, zipping darts, outmaneuvering pressure and getting the ball exactly to the right target on time. Sure, he got away with a couple of throws, but given it’s been three years since his last action, it’s fair to brush those aside.

“We needed him to play that well, particularly how slow we were, staying on schedule in terms of that running game there for the first three quarters, so not a surprise at all,” Johnson said. “He tackled everything this week with enthusiasm ... we’ve got one of the best quarterback rooms in the NFL. And that was a reflection of that.”

Keenum was particularly good when Fangio tried to rile him up with pressure. The QB averaged 12.4 yards per attempt against the blitz and averaged 9.9 yards per attempt when pressured. The 38-year-old’s familiarity with the style of offense Johnson wants to run was evident. The Bears aligned under center on 58.0% of offensive plays in the win, their highest rate since Week 14 of the 2025 season, per Next Gen Stats. They averaged 6.9 yards per play from under center, posting a season-high 46.2% rushing success rate and an 85.7% passing success rate, the second-highest under-center passing success rate of a team coached by Johnson.

“He knows where everyone's supposed to be on every single play, and so he's really quick to recognize coverage,” Johnson said of Keenum. “He knows why we're calling the play, what we're looking for, and if we're not getting that, he's accelerating through it extremely quickly. And so that's what you get when you're 15-plus years in this league, playing this position, you've seen it all. And I thought coach Fangio threw a lot at him tonight, too. He ran the whole gambit of everything we've seen on tape, as far as we were concerned, we saw a little bit of everything. So Case handled it really well.”So well that the Bears moved to 2-1 with seeming ease against an NFC contender.

Johnson declined to say who he planned to start in Week 4 against the New York Jets. After Monday’s performance, the one thing we can say with certainty is Chicago isn’t fretting about whoever gets the nod.

Posted on 2026/09/30 09:03 AM