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Quarterback Chase Daniel speaks after Bears practice Friday.

AP Photos

Why Chase Daniel is the Bears’ international man of mystery

The Bears have long praised Chase Daniel’s professionalism. Still, for all the team’s faith in him, the quarterback will make only his fifth career start Sunday against the Raiders.

LONDON — Chase Daniel had finished his second glass of tart cherry juice — the Bears gave it to their players because the melatonin makes them sleepy — when he reclined inside a sleeping pod on the Bears’ plane Thursday night.

He wondered: Were he the backup quarterback against the Raiders on Sunday, would he still have been given one of the few pods on the plane?

“Because I’m the oldest person on the team . . . probably?” he said Friday after the Bears’ practice at Allianz Park. “But that was definitely talked about by myself. I don’t know if, because I’m the backup, I get one or not.”

There was no question this week, though. Long before coach Matt Nagy officially ruled out Mitch Trubisky on Friday with a shoulder injury, Daniel prepared for his big moment overseas.

“I try to be the best backup quarterback in the league — not only at backup-quarterback stuff, but when my number’s called, playing well and playing with confidence,” Daniel said. “Can a backup quarterback transition into a game on short notice and run the offense seamlessly and not have anything change?”

The Bears have long praised Daniel’s professionalism. They pay him for it, too — he’s in the second year of a two-year, $10 million deal. Daniel, who turns 33 on Monday, has made $34.3 million in his career.

Still, for all the Bears’ faith in him, Daniel will be making only his fifth career start. 

For one week, at least, he’s the Bears’ international man of mystery.

Daniel first went incognito in August 2018, when he wore a navy Trubisky jersey, sunglasses and a navy bucket hat pulled low over his head at training camp. He got autographs from his unwitting teammates after practice as part of a Bears web video. 

Few fans — and fewer players — noticed him.

Wide receiver Josh Bellamy told him, “You look like Chase,” before eventually figuring it out. 

After signing the No. 10 jersey that Daniel was wearing, Trubisky turned to a staffer. 

“Who is that?” he said, before cracking up.

When Daniel spends about six hours touring London with his wife Saturday, he’ll undoubtedly get noticed by the Bears fans who have invaded the city.

“If it happens,” he said, “I just go about my business.”

• • • 

All you need to know about how Daniel’s mind works is this: He sorts the clothes in his closet by color.

“I tend to overthink things,” he said. “I’m very OCD; I’m very Type A. So I like to be prepared for every scenario. Now the chances of those scenarios happening are slim-to-none, but if it does come up, I want to be prepared.”

He’s better with less time to worry. Because of the Bears’ grueling schedule last year, he didn’t practice with the first team in the lead-up to his first start, on Thanksgiving Day against the Lions. Daniel finished with a 106.8 passer rating and two touchdown passes in the Bears’ victory.

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Daniel walks off the field after defeating the Vikings.

Nuccio DiNuzzo/Getty Images

In his second and final start, with a full week to prepare, he posted a 75.6 passer rating and threw a pick-six in the Bears’ loss to the Giants.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but there was no time for him to think about anything,” offensive coordinator Mark Helfrich said. “He had to just go. It was immediately go to the bullpen. You’re in. Pitch.”

The circus of this week has given Daniel something else to think about, which is a good thing. Having traveled to London for football games in 2015 and 2017, he was ready for the media avalanche at practice Friday and the strenuous travel leading up to it.

‘‘You got to worry about packing; you got to worry about family tickets; you got to worry about all that stuff,” he said. “And I’m really good at compartmentalizing, staying loose, staying calm.”

• • •

In the huddle and with his throws, Daniel often looks more confident than Trubisky.

“He’s really past the line with regard to command or [being] vocal,’’ Nagy said. “Not a lot of quarterbacks are like that. So that part you feel when you talk to him in a news conference. You feel it at practice; the players feel it. That’s just who he is.”

Nagy was careful to argue against the inverse, too — perhaps sensitive about how it might reflect on Trubisky.

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Matt Nagy has long been a supporter of Daniel.

Rick Scuteri/AP Photo

“I’ve been around other quarterbacks that are really good quarterbacks that aren’t like that,” Nagy said. “So, No. 1, you have that. The second part is some of the experience, as well. I know Chase hasn’t had a lot — hasn’t had a lot of starts in the NFL — but he’s been in a lot of practices, he’s been in a lot of preseason games and he’s played a lot of college games. 

“And so you put all that together, and there’s a confidence and a trust in himself. And you feel that.’’

Daniel does, too.

“I feel like I have a really good sense and feel in the huddle of how these guys want their quarterback to act,” said Daniel, who finished fourth in the 2007 Heisman Trophy voting while at Missouri. “And I feel like I do a pretty good job with that, so I do not miss a beat when I’m in. . . . I’m a point guard, so all I need to do in this offense is get the ball to our playmakers, and they do the rest.”

• • •

Daniel didn’t give a speech when he took the field after Trubisky dislocated his left shoulder against the Vikings.

“He just said the next play,” wide receiver Anthony Miller said. “It was like, ‘All right, let’s roll.’ ”

Daniel might have been the only person at Soldier Field who treated his first snap as any other.

He led the Bears to a touchdown on his first possession and, eventually, a 16-6 victory over Minnesota.  

“Every day, he realizes he’s one play away from him being in here, so he always stays ready,” running back Tarik Cohen said. “No. 1 quarterback? He’s like 1B.”

On Sunday, for only the fifth time, he’s 1A.

“Chase is a big vet quarterback,” Cohen said. “He’s been in the league for a long time. He’s ready for moments like this.”

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