The Chicago Bears will kick off their first game of Caleb Williams' injury timeline on Monday night at home against the Philadelphia Eagles. Williams went down with a hamstring injury toward the end of last week's game vs the Philadelphia Eagles, and it doesn't appear that his return will come anytime soon.
On Monday afternoon, the team got the latest update on Williams' status moving forward, and it wasn't a positive one.
“Caleb Williams is gonna be out 3-4 weeks.. Case Keenum is starting tonight and it will likely be Tyson Bagent next week,” said NFL insider Ian Rapoport of the NFL Network during a visit to ESPN's The Pat McAfee Show, via Pat McAfee on X, formerly Twitter.
Initially, Bagent was expected to be the starter for Monday's game against Philadelphia before word broke that he was in the concussion protocol. While he has since been cleared from the protocol, the team deemed that it would be more sensible to let him back up the veteran Case Keenum for Monday's game before bringing him back next week.
Meanwhile, it's certainly not great news for Williams, for whom there was speculation that he might be able to return from the hamstring injury as soon as this week.
While the 3-4 week timeline isn't as bad as some initially feared when seeing his on-field reaction to the injury, it will still be a challenge for Ben Johnson and company to keep the offense afloat without its centerpiece.
The Eagles and Bears are slated to kick off at 8:15 pm ET.