Coming out of Week 4, the Chicago Bears have a 3-1 record in the 2026 season. Each of those three wins has come with a different quarterback at the helm. On Sunday, Tyson Bagent was the one who got the job done in their 23-12 victory over the New York Jets.
The Bears utterly dominated the time-of-possession battle, squeezing out 42 minutes and 45 seconds of the 60-minute period to give the Jets very little time to get anything going on offense. It helped that Chicago’s defense held New York to just
157 yards and stopped the offense on each of its seven third-down conversion opportunities. Though the offense had its flaws, there was still more than enough firepower to make up for the absence of Caleb Williams in the lineup.
As of this writing, the Bears ranked No. 4 among 28 NFL offenses in PFN Offense Impact grading in Week 4, and they ranked No. 6 in PFN Defense Impact grading. These are some of my takeaways from Sunday’s win, which match up with what the analytics have to say.
Ben Johnson is a wizard, and Tyson Bagent is good enough
The efficiency of the Bears’ offense on Sunday was commendable. The team certainly took a run-heavy approach against the Jets, rushing the ball 54 times against 35 dropbacks to pass. Ben Johnson did a fantastic job of realizing where he had the leverage, and utilizing his athletic offensive line and impressive running back tandem to run it down New York’s throats. That helped Chicago dominate the time of possession battle, but when Bagent did drop back to pass, he was effective in moving the ball down the field.
Bagent completed 73.5% of his passing attempts on Sunday, throwing for 268 yards in the process. Of his 34 passing attempts, ten of them went more than 10 air yards past the line of scrimmage, and he completed seven of them. I’d argue that Case Keenum’s performance in Week 3 was slightly better from a decision-making perspective, but Bagent was tested with more opportunities to move the ball down the field, especially in the first half of the game.
In all, Bagent was perfectly serviceable. He wasn’t great, as made evident by his lack of passing touchdowns and his interception (a total which would have been four if three of them hadn’t been called back for penalties). There is no quarterback controversy in Chicago, and Bagent is a backup-caliber quarterback. And that’s perfectly fine. There’s a lot of value in a solid backup, especially one who understands Ben Johnson’s offense like Bagent does.
The Kyle Monangai showcase
Kyle Monangai out-carried D’Andre Swift 30 carries to 15 on Sunday, which is the largest gap Monangai has ever taken ahead of Swift in a single game. Once Swift coughed up a fumble in the third quarter — his second in three weeks — he didn’t touch the ball once for the remainder of the game. Monangai handled the load as the running back chosen to wind the clock down for the Bears, and he executed.
On his 30 carries, Monangai finished with 146 rushing yards, two rushing touchdowns, and an average of 4.9 yards per carry. He was decisive running in between the tackles, he was powerful bouncing off of defenders, and he showed off his trademark determination to battle for every yard he got. He already had an impressive performance before the Bears pulled Swift from the game, but from that point on, his consistency helped Chicago squeeze out the clock and put the game on ice.
Rome Odunze makes a statement
There’s admittedly very little to take away from the Bears’ defensive performance compared to most weeks, though credit belongs to the secondary for shutting down the Jets’ passing attack for much of the afternoon. Instead, I wanted to give a shoutout to Rome Odunze, who put together one of his best career performances to date on Sunday.
Odunze finished the game with six catches for 94 yards, hauling in all but one of his seven targets and averaging 15.7 yards per reception. His fluidity shined across the middle of the field, and he demonstrated his underrated ability to create separation pretty consistently. The big difference was his hands, as he’s had issues with drops over the course of his NFL career. Drops were not an issue for him on Sunday, and he put up legitimate WR1 production as a result. With how many mouths the Bears have to feed in their offense, it can be easy to overlook Odunze sometimes, but do so at your own risk. He showed improvement in his biggest weakness this week, which allowed him to maximize his existing strengths.
