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The Chicago Bears are still without a starting quarterback with less than two weeks until the season opener against the Detroit Lions. The hope was that there would be a definitive winner between Mitchell Trubisky or Nick Foles. But that simply wasn’t the case.
Now that the Bears quarterback competition is officially in the books — with only a walkthrough left Thursday before off days on Friday and Saturday — Bears head coach Matt Nagy has an important decision to make.
“It is not easy. It’s not clear-cut,” Nagy said Wednesday. “The way that we look at it as a coaching staff is that sometimes people will say, ‘Well, if you have two quarterbacks, that means you don’t have any.’ But we know what we have in these guys. We feel really good about both of them, and being as brutally honest as I could be, it’s difficult.”
It’s difficult because neither Trubisky or Foles has managed to separate himself in the competition. Both have had decent camps but nothing to write home about. Still, a winner must be decided.
Nagy and his coaching staff will take these next few days to examine every rep that Trubisky and Foles have had during camp and determine the starting quarterback. The announcement is expected to come next week, whether that’s Monday or Wednesday.
“Now what we can do as an offensive coaching staff is we can pull back, we get through [Thursday] and we’ll basically take every clip of every snap of both quarterbacks,” Nagy said. “We are going to get in a room and we are going to sit down and we are going to watch all of these clips.
“And we’re not just going to see, ‘Was it complete or was it incomplete?’ We’re going to dig really hard into the ‘why,’ and then we’re going to look at situational football. And then we’re going to look at what’s around him: ‘Is it 1 v. 2, 2 v. 1?’ And we’re going to just shut the door, we’re going to have our own opinions and then ultimately, in the end, we’re going to make a decision.”
With no organized team activities or preseason reps to go off, this competition hasn’t been ideal. But while there’s been a limited set of reps to evaluate, Nagy believes there’s been enough reps to make a decision.
“We now have a library of film that we can evaluate and critique and judge and make decisions,” he said. “That’s what we’re going to do. And then we’re going to make that decision, we’re going to move forward. Someone’s going to get the job and someone’s not going to get the job, and they’re both going to have to handle that the right way because it’s a long season. And so, in the end, when we all understand that this whole entire organization feels good with both quarterbacks, that’s a good problem to have. Now it’s our job to make it work.”
But you have to wonder — even at this point when no contender has run away with this thing — if Nagy already has his mind made up. Do they roll the dice with Trubisky — give their first-round pick one last chance — or play it safe with Foles and officially turn the page?
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