There will be no HBO Hard Knocks at Halas Hall this year, most likely to the delight of Bears owner George McCaskey.
He'll have to run for cover Aug. 15-17 because the cameras will be back with the Bills coming to practice against the Bears, as Buffalo is the subject of the show this year.
No need to fret. Instead of Hard Knocks to go behind the scenes, there is Tyson Bagent to provide a little glimpse of what goes on in the Bears quarterbacks room with coach Ben Johnson involved as a head coach. Bagent gave almost as good of an account of it as he does when he's talking about his hometown of Martinsburg, West Virginia.
There is no escaping Johnson's attention to detail in the Halas Hall quarterbacks room.
"I like how thorough he is," Bagent said.
According to quarterback Caleb Williams, Johnson would pop in on occasion and quiz quarterbacks on the offensive terminology.
“Each person, one at a time, go up to the front of the room, three plays in a row," Bagent explained. "(QB coach) J.T. (Barrett) would spit the play out to us and then we would spit the play out and then go through our operation until we got it correct.”
They're getting much better at it.
"I think at the beginning when he was doing those quizzes, it was kind of just like, putting somebody in a corner and pinning them there because we didn't really know what any of these words meant," Bagent said. "Trying to put together a play call when you don't really know what each word means is kind of hard. But I think just that act in itself was–at least for me, I can speak–when I would go home, I would go straight into my iPad and try to figure all that out.
"I think it served wonders for the quarterback room going down the line just for what the expectation is of having to be on top of it every day that you walk into the building. I thought it was great.”
It's part of what was missing when the Bears had the last coaching staff. As GM Ryan Poles admitted, "steps were skipped."
"I would say it's been a dream come true, especially for somebody like me that just loves the game and loves the hustle aspect of it," Bagent said. "It's been very intense, and kind of overloading us with information, which I'm a fan of. It's been wonderful. He has a good mixture of making sure we're locked in, having fun, laughing, and also, just being really intense. It's been great so far."
The quarterback-coach dynamic is so critical in today's game and having a head coach from the offensive side makes it so much easier to achieve. Can anyone imagine Matt Eberflus coming in to the QB room and giving out quizzes on the playbook on the offensive side?
That's the mental side of it. Physically, Johnson hasn't done much to change the passing mechanics of QBs, beyond having them put their left foot forward in shotgun.
"Outside of that it's really just within the lines he lets us do our thing," Bagent said. "So that's really the only thing I can think that he's really tweaked in my game."
Bagent needs to stay right with the other QBS because of his competition with Case Keenum for the backup role behind Williams.
No one's talking about it yet, but so far it would appear the coaches are giving Keenum the majority of second-team snaps in OTAs and minicamp. Reporters only saw two of the OTA practices but the three-day minicamp has been all Keenum with backups. Draw from that what you will, but Bagent is trying to stay positive. Johnson said it would be something he decided in training camp.
There also is no word on whether they plan to keep two or three quarterbacks yet. Justin Reed is the fourth quarterback and was on the practice squad last year as their third, when they only retained two for the roster while working for another head coach.
The pressure with that type of competition is literally down by down in practices.
“It's tough, but there's no better job in the whole world," Bagent said of being in a camp battle. "I'm so happy and so excited every single day that I wake up. And that for me is enough motivation–there's no alternative for me.
"I'm going to stay ready regardless of the situation I'm in. For the most part, it's been an absolute dream come true. Just going to keep staying at it and staying ready.”
They have to be. Johnson could be in at any second with a pop quiz.
