Bears

Bears QB Case Keenum played the hero on Monday night in the team’s victory over the Eagles, but QB Tyson Bagent has been improving and earning praise from his teammates, even though he didn’t get the start after being cleared from the concussion protocol.

“Going into last year, I’m like, man, I feel great. I think I’ve got this thing figured out. Just going in with a lot of confidence,” Bagent said via The Athletic. “Then a full year passes. And now I’m like, ‘Man, I didn’t know s— last year.’ Now I feel like I’m really in a good spot, continuing to learn and just continuing to make leaps and bounds on the mental side.”

“Guys who are really frickin’ smart tend to hang on to those mistakes they make,” Keenum said of Bagent during camp. “With him, it’s water off a duck’s back. … I’m impressed with how he’s grown through not being perfect…Tyson loves being coached hard. I think that’s how he was raised. That’s how he’s wired. And Ben coaches him hard and demands a lot because he knows he’s capable of a lot.”

Head coach Ben Johnson remains confident in both Keenum and Bagent with QB Caleb Williams sidelined.

“The mastery of the offense in that room is at another level,” Johnson noted of Bagent. “We’ve got a really dynamic quarterback room in terms of guys who are challenging each other. They’ve got great ideas; very smart, cerebral. They push each other. I don’t spend as much time with him one-on-one as I do Caleb. Yet every little thing that’s said in a meeting, he absorbs. And you know he’s going to look to apply it the next practice if it comes up for him. I just know I sleep well at night knowing that we have an elite backup on this roster.”

• Johnson said OT Braxton Jones is week-to-week, while OT Ozzy Trapilo is getting closer but isn’t sure if it will happen this week. (Zack Pearson)

Lions

• Jordan Schultz reports the Lions and Giants also showed interest to Pittsburgh regarding CB Joey Porter Jr. before he was moved to Dallas. 

Packers

Packers P Daniel Whelan has downed nine punts inside the 20 through three games. Green Bay STs coordinator Cam Achord said he’s proud of the progress Whelan has made at putting the ball in good positions. 

“He’s taken that step, wanting to be very, very prideful in that. He works that in practice, whether I have to take a little bit off, whether I can drive the ball, making sure we’re not putting it into the end zone and then letting the gunners go play it. He’s done a really good job adjusting in that and being able to place the ball different places too,” Achord said, via the team’s site. 

As for allowing a blocked field goal by the Falcons in their Week 3 loss, Achord wouldn’t say it was an “unscouted” play by Atlanta and thinks they could’ve followed “fundamental techniques” more closely. 

“Every week we practice different things. So anything that’s been on film, not on film, we try to give guys different scenarios. It was something different, but I wouldn’t say like it’s unscouted or not been seen for the league or anything like that. You just try to give the guys multiple situations that could occur. I know field goal protection looks like oh, just everybody stands there and gets big. It’s obviously inside out as anything, but it’s just the fundamental techniques of doing what we should do every single time,” Achord said. 

• Packers HC Matt LaFleur was asked when new OL Laken Tomlinson, Kevin Zeitler and Mekhi Becton could play: “That’s the magic question is how long does that take…we have a ramp up plan for each individual.” (Weston Hodkiewicz)

Vikings

• The Athletic’s Alec Lewis wrote an autopsy of what went wrong between the Vikings and QB J.J. McCarthy. In addition to the obvious injury setbacks in his rookie year with a torn meniscus and the various nicks the past two years, Lewis says the Vikings miscalculated in their plan to pair McCarthy with a veteran in 2025. 
• Lewis notes Minnesota felt confident it could either keep QB Sam Darnold after his exemplary 2025 season or that QB Daniel Jones would value the Vikings’ offensive ecosystem. Instead, both players left for teams willing to either commit more or offer a clearer path to playing time. 
• The Vikings even lost veteran journeyman Nick Mullens to the Jaguars, another outcome Lewis says surprised them. 
• While the Vikings ultimately decided not to sign QB Aaron Rodgers due to concerns about his fit and McCarthy potentially requesting a trade, Lewis quoted a conversation with a staffer at the time who was explaining why Minnesota wanted veteran insurance for McCarthy: “This organization went from the ultimate professional in Kirk (Cousins) to an experienced veteran who is buttoned up in Sam (Darnold). J.J. (McCarthy) is still so young.”
• Lewis writes that McCarthy’s rookie year on injured reserve with a knee injury was exceptionally challenging, with sources from both the team and McCarthy’s camp confirming it. Not only was it tough to be away from the game, but it was hard on McCarthy to see Darnold play well and win over the locker room.  
• Even after the Vikings committed to McCarthy as the starter in his second season, hoping to power through his growing pains with a strong rest of the roster, his camp performances made it clear he still had a lot of development to do as a passer, per Lewis. 
• He added that McCarthy had small maturity issues that exacerbated things, like his comments about his “Nine” alter ego and bouts of defiance to coaching feedback. 
• One Vikings staffer told Lewis at the end of a turbulent 2025 season: “I knew this was going to be up and down when we made that choice this spring (to move forward with McCarthy as the starter), but it has just been brutal.”
• This offseason, Lewis said the Vikings felt like they couldn’t take the patience star WR Justin Jefferson showed in 2025 for granted and felt a lot of urgency to get more consistent quarterback play. 
• Lewis mentioned the Vikings had McCarthy behind the top three quarterbacks in the 2024 class and looked to trade up to get one of them. They took him over Broncos QB Bo Nix because they thought he had more upside, although everyone with the team understood McCarthy would be a developmental project. 
• NFL reporter Charles Robinson said the rest of the NFL viewed McCarthy as a trade candidate back in February, ahead of the NFL Scouting Combine. Once Minnesota signed QB Kyler Murray, it meant the writing was on the wall for McCarthy, even though HC Kevin O’Connell claimed there was an open competition. 
• Regarding McCarthy’s knee injury and his lost rookie year, a source told Robinson it “gutted” everyone involved. 
• After McCarthy’s rookie year, Robinson said there was a perception that both he and Darnold saw the future as a “me or him” dynamic. 
• Robinson’s sources had their own take on McCarthy’s maturity issues. The quarterback was described as a “pleaser” and good 90 percent of the time, but the other 10 percent there would be issues with maturity and focus, such as being distracted in quarterback meetings or paying too much attention to details that didn’t matter. Robinson says multiple people used the term “acting JJ-ish.”
• Robinson adds some of this is rooted in coaches from the Shanahan/McVay tree having extremely high expectations for how prepared they want their quarterbacks to be, plus the need for an extremely young McCarthy to grow up fast once he became the starter. 
• Beyond all of that, McCarthy’s inability to get a handle on his accuracy as quickly as the team needed to contributed to the relationship breaking down. One source told Robinson: “If J.J. completed just three more passes a game — layups — we’re probably not even having these conversations.”