Chicago Bears: Is Tyler Bray playing for his job?

Tyler Bray will get to start on Thursday and will play four quarters of game action. Is he playing to earn a spot on the 53-man roster?

Despite struggling early into the preseason, Chase Daniel bounced back and had a sharp end to his preseason. While there may be better options available, there is no doubt Daniel knows the offense, can help Mitchell Trubisky in the quarterback room and can come in and manage a game in an emergency situation.

The Chicago Bears are comfortable with Chase Daniel. With that in mind, it brings the question as to whether or not Tyler Bray is valuable enough to keep on the roster. I mean, he is not lighting up the preseason.

Yes, he knows the offense and has been groomed in the offense in a similar way to Daniel. However, if Trubisky and Daniel go down, you would think that the Bears are picking up the phone to find a quarterback before turning the keys over to Bray if they had real intentions of competing.

At this point, it feels as though Bray is being groomed to be a longterm backup. There is nothing wrong with that, but it has to be questioned whether that type of player is worthy of a roster spot. This is the team with a mess at edge rusher, and an injury background that warrants depth at all positions. That would mean keeping two quarterbacks and using Bray’s spot on an extra edge rusher, or a special teamer, or even a player such as Kevin Toliver.

With that in mind, Tyler Bray is going to get four quarters to make the decision tougher or easier. Still, how well would he have to play for another team to claim him on waivers? I know quarterback is valuable, but that would mean that Bray would have to be active for his first three weeks with the team. Not many teams carry three quarterbacks anymore, and not many teams would be eager to pounce on Bray if he were to pop up on waivers.

This is going to be one of the most significant moments of Bray’s career. He has the full game, and a chance to put as much good tape out there for not only Matt Nagy and the Chicago Bears, but also any team who is interested in adding him to their room.

It will be interesting to see how Bray responds to the adversity of playing with so much on the line. Bray will be a storyline to follow in a game with little on the line.