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Who owns the Bears rookie passing touchdown record? A 79-year mystery, solved.

Even if he does not start for a few more weeks, Justin Fields has a good shot at breaking the Bears rookie record for touchdown passes in a season. That much we know.

But what is the record? And who holds it?

Until this week, those questions were in dispute.

There were two possibilities. The first comes from the Bears media guide and common reporting, showing the record as 9, shared by Jim McMahon in 1982 and Kyle Orton in 2005.

But in 1942, the Bears had a quarterback in his first NFL season — crucially his second season after college — named Charlie O’Rourke, who threw 11 touchdowns.