Chicago Bears
The Bears have been around since 1920 — they were one of the NFL’s original franchises as the Decatur Staleys, then the Chicago Staleys, then the Chiacgo Bears since 1922. And it could be argued that the franchise’s last transcendent quarterback was Sid Luckman, who retired in 1950. It’s unusual for a franchise with the average number of staff changes over the years remains so under the curve when it comes to quarterback evaluation, but that’s where we are with the Bears, who seem incapable of understanding quarterback performance versus quarterback value. The move to trade for Nick Foles, and take on his massive salary, is just the latest version of this. Foles has restructured his deal to allow him to void the contract after either of the next two seasons based on performance, when there’s no clear indication that he’ll be able to beat out Mitchell Trubisky based on recent performance. You have to work very, very hard to be this weird about quarterbacks through the eras, so we’ll give the Bears some credit for that. The moves for Robert Quinn and Jimmy Graham won’t pull this out of the fire. Very little could. Texans head coach/GM Bill O’Brien was taken off the hook with the DeAndre Hopkins disaster, because this was the worst deal of the 2020 free-agency period.
Grade: F