Bear Digest

Case Keenum adds veteran's touch as Bears backup to Caleb Williams

Case Keenum joins his eighth team in Chicago after spending the last two seasons in Houston behind C.J. Stroud.

Gene Chamberlain

Case Keenum stands in and fires against the Bears with Akiem Hicks rushing in 2017, during Minnesota's run to the playoffs.
Case Keenum stands in and fires against the Bears with Akiem Hicks rushing in 2017, during Minnesota's run to the playoffs. / Brad Rempel-Imagn Images
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It only seems like Case Keenum has been a backup quarterback for every team in the NFL.

It's actually only been eight teams and now the eighth one is the Chicago Bears.

Keenum, 37, agreed to a one-year, $3 million deal, according to ESPN's Adam Schefter. He'll come in and compete with Tyson Bagent for backup quarterback behind Caleb Williams, although you don't bring in a veteran with 66 starts thinking he'll be third string.

This provides the Bears with the experienced hand to help guide Williams that they lacked last year when Bagent was retained as backup.

Keenum spent the last two years with the Houston Texans, the team that brought him into the league in out of Houston University as an undrafted free agent in 2012. The Abilene, Texas native spent all last season on injured reserve with a foot injury.

Keenum last had signifcant playing time in 2021 when he threw 72 passes for the Browns and completed 47 (65.3%). For his career, Keenum is 1,392 of 2,233 (62.3%) for 15,175 yards with 79 touchdowns, 51 interceptions and an 84.6 passer rating.

His best year was probably 2017, when he quarterbacked the Minnesota Vikings to the NFC championship game with a win over the New Orleans on a long, late touchdown pass to Stefon Diggs, dubbed "the Minnesota miracle." Then Keenum and the Vikings were blown out by Nick Foles and the Eagles in the NFC Championship Game before the Eagles beat New England in the Super Bowl.

"You don't have to get ready if you stay ready."

- Case Keenum on being a backup QB


Keenum led the Vikings to an 11-3 mark as starter that season.

"Case came here with a lot of moxie and self-confidence," safety Harrison Smith said after the Minnesota Miracle. "It seems like everybody on the outside keeps waiting for him not to do it, and he keeps getting it done, every single week. And this ... this was just magic."

Keenum has started only four games since 2019 and his team won three of them. In 2017, Keenum had 22 touchdown passes, just seven interceptions and a passer rating of 98.3 as he connected on 67.6% of throws (325 of 481) for 3,547 yards. A year later in Denver, he threw for a career-high 3,890 yards.

The Bears had a competition for backup last year between Bagent, the former Division II QB who helped them to a 2-2 record in 2023 when Justin Fields was injured. Brett Rypien lost the battle and wound up in Minnesota after being cut. Bagent got into only four games very briefly last year and completed both of his throws. Bagent is going into his third NFL season.

As a perennial backup, Keenum lives by a creed that explains how he's usually been able to give a good account of himself when called into a game at a moment's notice.

"'You don't have to get ready if you stay ready," he told a TV broadcast crew, when called upon to start against the Steelers while with the Browns.

Keenum has thrown three touchdown passes in a game six times and four once.
He has a 30-36 record as a starter.

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Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.