The Chicago Bears’ offensive unraveling started with about 11 minutes to play in the fourth quarter Sunday at the Caesars Superdome.

Trailing the New Orleans Saints by a touchdown, rookie quarterback Tyson Bagent sent a pass toward Darnell Mooney in the middle of the field, but safety Marcus Maye jumped in front of it for an interception.

Bagent hopped a few times and then dropped to the ground for a few seconds as he processed the turnover.

There were far too many of those moments in the Saints’ 24-17 win.

Maye’s interception was one of five Saints takeaways, including four off Bagent. In what could be one of his last starts in place of injured starter Justin Fields — if not the last — Bagent threw three interceptions and lost a fumble. He committed three of those turnovers on the Bears’ final four drives of the fourth quarter — with the game within reach thanks to some big defensive stops.

“It really just all comes down to myself in that last quarter of being able to do a better job of taking care of the ball,” Bagent said. “Coach talks about it every single day, how important it is to take care of the ball, and I didn’t do a good job of that.”

He added: “I thought our team played extremely well, which is why it’s so embarrassing. One-score game, to lose the turnover battle by that amount, it’s embarrassing.”

It’s unclear yet if that was Bagent’s last start in place of Fields.

Fields practiced Friday for the first time since dislocating his thumb Oct. 15. Bears general manager Ryan Poles said during the team’s pregame radio show on WMVP-AM 1000 there’s a possibility Fields will be ready to play Thursday night against the Carolina Panthers at Soldier Field.

Bears coach Matt Eberflus said he will know more Monday as the team begins its three days of preparation.

“It was really good to see (Fields) throw and go through a progression over the last few days,” Poles said. “To see him back out on the field with his teammates, throwing on air, throwing in seven on seven, working through some adjustments with a glove, without a glove. We’ll see what he feels comfortable with moving forward. We’ll also lean on our medical staff to make sure that we’re making the right decision as well.”

If Sunday was an end to Bagent’s three-game stint as a starting quarterback, it wasn’t a good one.

The day had started so well for the Bears, with Bagent finding tight end Cole Kmet for a highlight-reel 18-yard touchdown on their opening drive. A diving Kmet reached up over the hands of Saints safety Tyrann Mathieu to pull down the score.

Bagent threw an interception on his second drive to Paulson Adebo on a pass to Kmet, but he rebounded by leading another touchdown drive, hitting Kmet again with a 9-yard touchdown pass. With the game tied 14-14 at halftime, Bagent had thrown for 148 yards, two touchdowns an interception and had rushed for 60 yards.

Kmet didn’t place the blame for the first pick entirely on Bagent, saying he could have at least tried to break up Adebo’s catch.

“I don’t know if (Bagent) got fooled with the drop-eight a little bit, but I could do a better job of coming back to the football, and I think the other guys would say the same on theirs as well,” Kmet said. “I just told (Bagent) to keep ripping it because those are the right throws. We’ve got to be better as playmakers in terms of making him right and making those plays, friendly angles, and all those types of deals. I still thought he played a really good game, and we’ve got to be better around him, and we’ve got to shore up the penalties.”

Adebo also forced wide receiver DJ Moore to fumble following a 13-yard catch in the third quarter, and the Saints followed with a field goal. But the game was tied heading into the fourth quarter.

The Saints then started all five of their fourth-quarter drives in Bears territory, though they only scored once, on a 3-yard Taysom Hill pass to Juwan Johnson that put them ahead 24-17 with 11 minutes, 11 seconds to play.

That’s when Bagent’s string of late turnovers began.

“We came kind of to a screaming halt there,” Kmet said. “I don’t know if I’ve ever seen it before where they’re on our side of the 50 for the better (part) of the fourth quarter. … That’s crazy. I don’t know if that’s ever happened before. I’ve never seen that in my life.”

After the Maye interception, the Bears stopped Saints quarterback Derek Carr for no gain on fourth-and-1 on the next drive. But the Bears gave the ball back six plays later when Adebo got in front of a pass to Tyler Scott for his third takeaway of the day.

“I think it was good on their part, bad on my part,” Bagent said of the fourth-quarter interceptions. “Tight coverage, they made a couple really good plays. Hats off to them, but once again, I’ve got to probably just go somewhere else with the ball. So that’s on me.”

The Bears had one final chance to tie when Blake Grupe’s 47-yard field goal bounced off the left upright to keep it a one-score game. But Saints linebacker Demario Davis got between offensive linemen Larry Borom and Cody Whitehair for a strip-sack of Bagent that linebacker Pete Werner recovered.

Bagent and Eberflus both said the rookie’s main focus is now learning from the mistakes he made. Whether that’s on the field in one more start or in practice as the backup to Fields should be known soon.

“We’ve just got to let it soak in for him,” Moore said. “You can’t just jump on him right now. We all know we lost the game because of turnovers. He knows that. We’ve just got to get back to the drawing board.”

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The first start for a backup quarterback can be the best one a lot of the time.

That’s a theory one veteran personnel man holds.

“Nobody has any tape on you,” he said. “They don’t know who you are. They don’t know how you throw the ball. They don’t know what your game is. They don’t know how you’re being used.

“A lot of backups can win their first game, and I have seen it over time. Some of them didn’t have any arm strength but they do things a little different.”

Tyson Bagent won his first start for the Bears in Week 7, a 30-12 victory against the Las Vegas Raiders at Soldier Field. It’s worth wondering if that result played a factor in owner Mark Davis’ decision to fire general manager Dave Ziegler and coach Josh McDaniels on Tuesday.

The second act wasn’t quite as smooth for Bagent in a 30-13 loss against the Los Angeles Chargers at SoFi Stadium. He completed 25 of 37 passes for 232 yards and two interceptions. That brings us to Sunday’s game against the New Orleans Saints at the Caesars Superdome.

The Bears are headed to one of the loudest stadiums in the league against a veteran defense that has thrived against the pass. It’s a big test. The Saints (4-4) haven’t played a very difficult schedule — their four victories have come against the Carolina Panthers, Indianapolis Colts, New England Patriots and Tennessee Titans, who have a composite record of 9-22 — but they rank fifth in total defense (296.4 yards per game) and fourth in points (19.3).

Opposing quarterbacks have a 73.2 passer rating, No. 2 in the league, and are completing only 57.5% of passes. The Saints are No. 3 on third down at 32.4%. The Superdome can be a house of horrors for quarterbacks, especially those playing for the Bears. They haven’t won a game in New Orleans since Oct. 27, 1991, when Jim Harbaugh threw a 12-yard touchdown pass to Tom Waddle for a 20-17 victory. In handing the Saints their first loss that season, Harbaugh finished 5 of 22 for 61 yards with the one score and two interceptions. Ugly.

In a 2011 game there, Jay Cutler completed only 19 of 45 passes and was sacked six times in a 30-13 loss. Mitch Trubisky was 14 of 32 in a 20-12 loss in New Orleans in 2017. Numbers in the other four losses since the 1991 winner aren’t very good. (They beat the Saints 20-17 in November 2005 at Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge, La.)

It’s guaranteed to be the most hostile environment Bagent has played in after Sunday’s subdued — by NFL standards — experience in Inglewood, Calif.

“Whether you’re in a walk-through, whether you’re in practice reps, you’ve got to create that noise so you can continue to work on your hand signals and all that stuff and make sure everyone’s on the same page with the cadences and when we’re getting to it, when we make adjustments and all that stuff,” offensive coordinator Luke Getsy said. “It’s just that repetition and you’ve got to make sure that every single rep — walk-through or live — has got to be in that type of mentality, that type of environment and that kind of process for you.”

The Bears are going to have to execute much better all-around to avoid being in chase mode. The first three third downs last Sunday led to their doom. Bagent was sacked by Joey Bosa on third-and-11, knocking the Bears out of range for a long field-goal attempt. A crossing route to tight end Cole Kmet on third-and-16 came up 3 yards short of the line to gain and then Ja’Sir Taylor intercepted Bagent on a third-and-8 throw intended for DJ Moore.

“They do an unconventional Cover-2 and DJ, been in the league, experienced, sees it, converts the proper way,” Getsy said. “Tyson just didn’t on that particular one. He’ll learn from that. He’s a guy who doesn’t usually make the same mistake twice. I thought he did a really nice job from that play and then bouncing back.”

The Chargers turned the takeaway into a field goal, making it 17-0 with 8:50 remaining in the second quarter after two punts and the pick. The week before against the Raiders, the offense stayed out of third-and-longs for the most part. Nine of the 13 third downs required 6 yards or less, so the Bears had run and pass options and Bagent helped keep the offense on schedule.

The personnel man said there were obvious questions about Bagent’s arm strength against the Raiders. That is why the Bears went max protect and he threw deep — 41 yards — to Darnell Mooney on the first snap against the Chargers. Bagent would have had a 40-yard touchdown pass to Velus Jones had the receiver not stumbled. So he proved he can cut it loose a bit.

Bagent has done a nice job of getting the ball out quickly. He has taken only two sacks, and the Bears have only three in the last two games as Nathan Peterman was sacked trying to attempt a Hail Mary on the final play of the first half against the Raiders.

The Saints have played man coverage almost 60% of the time this season, the second-highest rate in the league, and they don’t blitz a lot. They like to run games up front to create pressure and disguise late movement in the secondary with veteran safeties Tyrann Mathieu and Marcus Maye. That’s going to create some unique challenges for Bagent, even as the Bears attempt to prepare him for every scenario.

“Repetition is the mother of all learners,” Bagent said. “So the more reps I can get at this full speed in the game, I’m sure the more comfortable I’ll be. So it’s always good to continue to get reps, and I’m just looking forward to continue to develop the best that I can through this time.”

It’s a difficult situation to prepare for. The Saints have a scouting report on Bagent and understand what Getsy and the staff are asking him to do. With more experience, we’ll find out where Bagent’s career could be headed.

He’s a backup. He’s an undrafted rookie. It’s the Superdome. But it’s the NFL and players aren’t evaluated on a curve.

“Everybody has to come meet the standard of what we want to go to — not just quarterback but everybody,” Getsy said.

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In response to Hayes Gardner’s excellent article, “‘Essentially gifting the land’: Economists pan land deal with Orioles; state says it will ‘reinvigorate’ Camden Yards” (Oct. 27), there are still many unanswered questions about the development agreement included in the memorandum of understanding between Gov. Wes Moore and Orioles Chairman and CEO John Angelos. These include:

Is the state receiving adequate value for this agreement? Under the MOU, the state will lease the property to Angelos for 99 years and receive $94 million in rent over that time. Based on a present value analysis of the rents to be received over the term of the lease, $94 million is worth somewhere between $13 million and $20 million in today’s dollars. So how much are the state-owned properties included in the development agreement worth?

Without a procurement process whereby the Maryland Stadium Authority would solicit proposals from qualified developers and without an actual bid competition to see what the highest value is, there is no exact answer. However, in anticipation that the MSA and Orioles may want to look at developing these properties, the MSA engaged Cushman & Wakefield for planning purposes to estimate the value. I encourage MSA to release this report to the public.

The second question arises because under the proposed terms, the Orioles will have up to 10 years to begin construction. Who manages the property in the interim, and who collects rents from existing tenants and who bears responsibility for maintaining the property during this period? Currently, the MSA receives more than $3 million annually in rents but, under the development agreement, it will receive $1.5 million in rents from the Orioles for the first five years and $500,000 in rents for the next five years. Isn’t the state losing money?

The third question derives from the fact that, in 2021, the MSA invested significant dollars to upgrade aging infrastructure in the warehouse and to freshen all the common areas. There is approximately $30 million of debt still outstanding for that work, and the MSA pays more than $3 million per year in debt service. Will the Orioles assume responsibility for this debt service, or will the MSA still have this responsibility? Where will the funds to service the debt come from?

The fourth question is: Why would the Orioles be selected as the developer of this property when they have no prior development experience? The MSA is the only developer who has ever worked on the Camden Yards complex and successfully developed Orioles Park, M&T Bank Stadium and the warehouse. The concept of “live, work, play” was originally advanced by the MSA all the way back to 2017. Why would the MSA not be the developer or a partner in the development for the property it owns?

The fifth question is why would the state agree to allow the Orioles to have a 30-year lease for the stadium but a 99-year lease for the developable properties? Under this scenario, the team could change owners while Angelos keeps the development rights. Because there is no cross-default provision between the stadium use agreement and the development agreement, the state will tie up the developable properties for 99 years, receive only a base rent and receive none of the upside while it retains all of the downside risk. To develop the properties, the Orioles will need to secure financing, and its lender will want the state to subordinate its rights to collect even the paltry rent unless the debt payments are made. If the development fails, the Orioles walk away with no risk and the state will inherit a failed development with debt still outstanding.

My last question is: Why isn’t the state seeking competing bids from actual developers, as is typically required under Maryland law? The last time the state tried to pick a favored developer without real competition it didn’t turn out well. The State Center project was halted by a lawsuit that accused the state of violating its own laws in selecting a developer without competition. Ironically, the plaintiff in the suit was Peter Angelos. There are numerous developers both locally and nationally with real experience in developing sports-related properties.

In the statement from Kerry Watson, the Orioles’ executive vice president of public affairs, he talks about benefits to Maryland from the collection of sales tax, jobs that number in the thousands and community opportunities. David Turner, Gov. Moore’s communications director, cited the economic impact of entertainment districts around Major League Baseball stadiums in Atlanta, St. Louis, Colorado and Texas. He mentions tax revenues, too. Wouldn’t it be fair for policymakers and citizens to see these projections so we can weigh the likelihood these benefits are achievable?

In summary, I ask that the Cushman & Wakefield report and projections for tax revenues and other benefits to be derived by the state be shared with policymakers and the public. I also ask that Governor Moore explain why competing bids were not solicited and how the citizens of Maryland can be assured that they are receiving fair value for assets owned by the state that would be under private control for 99 years. More sunlight is a good thing.

— Thomas Kelso, Phoenix

The writer served as chairman of the Maryland Stadium Authority from 2015 to 2023.

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