[Case Keenum](/players/case-keenum) showed savviness doesn’t expire with age or get creaky with cobwebs.
In his first action since 2023, Keenum dusted off his gunslinger persona and led the Chicago Bears to a resounding 27-7 win over the previously unbeaten Philadelphia Eagles.
“It’s all about Case Keenum and what he was able to do here tonight,” Bears coach Ben Johnson said. “I thought he did an extraordinary job. When the running game's not going, as a play caller, being able to lean into the passing game, knowing that our guys are trying to protect for him, he's going to get the ball out and go to the right guy in time, take care of the football, good decisions. 24-of-34, almost 250 yards, two touchdowns; he just played really efficient football, and I couldn't be prouder of him for that.”
Keenum officially passed for 247 yards and added four runs for six yards and a rushing TD on a sucker sneak to ice the contest. Keenum became the oldest player (38 years, 223 days) in Bears history to score a rushing touchdown, breaking the previous mark held by [Dave Krieg](/players/dave-krieg) (38 years, 49 days).
Read that last line again: In the historic 107-year history of the Chicago Bears, Keenum is the oldest player to record a rushing TD. And that’s the sort of night it was. Remarkable.
“As a kid you dream about it,” Keenum said after the win. “You know, you feel like you can. I don't know if you think about the week that it takes, the work that it takes in the offseason to clean up your diet. You work extremely hard to get your body back to where it needs to be. You go through a training camp as the three and grind out some reps, you're getting a few reps a day. You know, to get a shot again to do it like this, I mean, yeah, you dream about it. That's why I'm still here, still doing this, why I'm still getting up. And I've been knocked down my whole career I just keep getting up. Keep coming to work and keep bouncing back.”
Keenum’s winding 14-year NFL career has included highs, like the Minneapolis Miracle, and lows, when he washed out of being a regular starter. However, he’s always owned the smarts and arm to get the ball where he needed it to go. Monday night he proved a perfect distributor to fill in for Johnson’s offense.
The Bears had Vic Fangio’s defense running in circles. Sure, Philly stymied the run game for three quarters this time around, but Keenum's quick papercuts bled them dry. The QB was nearly flawless, zipping darts, outmaneuvering pressure, and getting the ball exactly to the right target on time. Sure, he got away with a couple of throws, but given it’s been two years since his last action, it’s fair to brush those aside.
“We needed him to play that well, particularly how slow we were, staying on schedule in terms of that running game there for the first three quarters, so not a surprise at all,” Johnson said. “He tackled everything this week with enthusiasm… we’ve got one of the best quarterback rooms in the NFL. And that was a reflection of that.”
Keenum was particularly good when Fangio tried to rile him up with pressure. The QB averaged 12.4 yards per attempt against the blitz and averaged 9.9 yards per attempt when pressured. The 38-year-old’s familiarity with the style of offense Johnson wants to run was evident. The Bears aligned under center on 58.0% of offensive plays in the win, their highest rate since Week 14 of the 2025 season, per Next Gen Stats. They averaged 6.9 yards per play from under center, posting a season-high 46.2% rushing success rate and an 85.7% passing success rate, the second-highest under-center passing success rate of a team coached by Johnson.
“He knows where everyone's supposed to be on every single play, and so he's really quick to recognize coverage,” Johnson said of Keenum. “He knows why we're calling the play, what we're looking for, and if we're not getting that, he's accelerating through it extremely quickly. And so that's what you get when you're 15 plus years in this league, playing this position, you've seen it all. And I thought Coach Fangio threw a lot at him tonight, too. He ran the whole gambit of everything we've seen on tape, as far as we were concerned, we saw a little bit of everything. So Case handled it really well.”
So well that the Bears moved to 2-1 with seeming ease against an NFC contender.
Johnson declined to say who he planned to start in Week 4 against the New York Jets. After Monday’s performance, the one thing we can say with certainty is Chicago isn’t fretting about whoever gets the nod.