CHICAGO -- Tyson Bagent will start at quarterback for the Chicago Bears against the Green Bay Packers, coach Ben Johnson announced Monday.
"Tyson will be the guy, and we'll go forward from there," Johnson said during his weekly appearance on ESPN 1000 in Chicago.
Bagent led the Bears to a 23-12 win over the New York Jets in place of Caleb Williams, who missed his second straight game while recovering from a hamstring strain. Williams sustained his injury late in the fourth quarter in a loss to the Vikings on Sept. 20 and is expected to be sidelined for three to four weeks, sources told ESPN's Adam Schefter and NFL Network's Ian Rapoport.
Williams will not be available to the Bears this week and miss his third straight game, Johnson said later Monday. Johnson said that Williams has done a "great" job with his rehab and is still considered "week-to-week" by the team.
Johnson called Bagent's performance against the Jets a "mixed bag" after the quarterback completed 25 of his 34 pass attempts for 268 yards and an interception. Bagent had three other interceptions negated by penalties and took responsibility postgame for the first-quarter throw to tight end Colston Loveland that was picked off by Jets safety Minkah Fitzpatrick.
"Yeah, 100% unacceptable on my end," Bagent said Sunday. "You have to continue to just be super clean play in and play out. I had the crossing route to Loveland, really just have to put it out in front of him, or if I don't like it find my checkdown. But thought that we had two turnovers today, have to be a lot cleaner in that department going forward. But yeah, 100% my fault on that, and have to be better going forward."
Johnson said the Bears are in "good shape" with Bagent as they prepare for their second NFC North opponent of the season.
"The best part was how he controlled the operation," Johnson said on ESPN 1000. "I thought we had good tempo in and out of the huddle. I thought our guys played with a lot of confidence because of how he conducted himself, and he found completions. I thought he played an efficient football game.
"We put the ball in jeopardy too much, and fortunately we did have a couple negated due to penalties, and yet the one that we had was still a significant turnover because we're giving them momentum and between the fact that we weren't scoring in the red zone, the game was a lot closer than what it needed to be. So we've got to do a better job protecting that football. And there's a couple times where we had some other opportunities down the field that we're going to challenge him to go ahead and pull the trigger on, particularly when we had our pass catchers playing the way they did yesterday."
Wide receiver Rome Odunze (six catches, 94 yards) and tight end Colston Loveland (six catches, 57 yards) recorded season highs in receiving against the Jets. The Bears did not record a passing touchdown and relied on a dominant rushing performance fueled by Kyle Monangai's career-high 30 carries for 146 yards and two touchdowns to seal the victory.
Monangai is dealing with a thumb injury.
"We think he's going to be OK," Johnson said later Monday. "So, we'll see what it looks like as we go through the week here, but more of a day-to-day type deal."
The Bears are 3-1 after the first quarter of the season and have seen three quarterbacks -- Williams, Bagent and Case Keenum -- guide the team to wins.
Chicago has amassed 1,716 yards, its most through four games in history. After running 89 plays against the Jets, which was 57 more than New York accounted for Sunday, the Bears' play total is up to 298, the most in franchise history through four games since at least 1964. That's 106 more plays than were run by their first four opponents: the Panthers, Vikings, Eagles and Jets.
But one area where the Bears have struggled, particularly since Week 2, is bothersome to Johnson. Excluding kneel downs from Keenum and Bagent at the end of the Eagles and Jets games, the Bears are 4-for-13 in the red zone since Week 2.
The Bears turned the ball over on downs on a 14-play, 93-yard opening drive that resulted in D'Andre Swift having two touchdown runs inside the 3-yard line wiped off the board after replay determined that he did not break the plane of the end zone.
"Our red zone execution was below our standard there, really for the last three games, not just this game" Johnson said. "It's something that I've got to look in the mirror, just make sure we're calling the right things when we get down there."