Bears backup quarterback Case Keenum hadn’t played in three years. He didn’t forget how to play the position.
With Ben Johnson calling the plays, Keenum went 15-of-21 for 149 yards and a touchdown.
The Bears lead 10-7 at halftime.
Both teams blew scoring opportunities from the other team’s 1-yard line, but the Eagles went all-or-nothing on the final play of the half with the clock running and scored.
Jalen Hurts threw an 8-yard pass to DeVonta Smith to the Chicago 1, and the Eagles hurried to the line and got set, with the snap occurring a split second before the clock hit zero. Hurts scored on a tush push.
The Bears scored a touchdown on their first drive on Luther Burden’s 8-yard reception from Keenum. They had a 6-yard touchdown overturned on replay when tight end Colston Loveland was ruled down just short of the goal line. The Bears, though, turned it over on downs, with D’Andre Swift losing 2 yards and then Keenum throwing incomplete twice.
The Bears later had to settle for a chip-shot Cairo Santos field goal after reaching the Philadelphia 11.
The Eagles are the only team in the NFL not to score in the first quarter. They had scored 14 points in the second quarter in each of their first two games.
They should have had 14 by halftime Monday.
Philadelphia got to the Chicago 1 on Saquon Barkley’s 14-yard run on the play after Hurts was pulled out of the game by the unaffiliated neurotrauma consultant. The Eagles quarterback was hit out of bounds by Bears linebacker D’Marco Jackson, and he was eventually cleared of a concussion. But not before his replacement, Andy Dalton, threw an interception to Bears defensive back Dillon Thieneman in the end zone on third-and-goal from the 2.
Hurts is 10-of-13 for 111 yards, and Barkley has 73 yards on 11 carries.