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One thing was made abundantly clear during Wednesday’s press conference featuring Bears general manager Ryan Pace and head coach Matt Nagy: Mitchell Trubisky won’t be a Bear in 2021.
Which, to be honest, is good for all parties involved. Trubisky has a chance for a fresh start while Pace and Nagy have a chance to distance themselves from Trubisky with an eye toward the future.
Only, that future also involves Nick Foles, who the Bears traded for last offseason. Foles is under contract for two more seasons, and barring a trade, Chicago is bound to him financially.
And listening to Pace and Nagy talk about how well Foles handled everything in his first season with the Bears, it sounds like we’re up for another season of Foles, as well as another quarterback that they choose to bring in, whether that’s a veteran or a rookie or even both.
“With Foles specifically, as we look at that, and I reflect on him and that move and he’s under contract for us, I respect the way he handled a lot of adversity this year, not just for himself in the quarterback room,” Pace said. “He was a leader in the room as a starter or as a backup. And I think you go back to when he was playing and there were some things that, in fairness to him, the offensive line was a little unsettled and the run game wasn’t quite where we wanted it to be. And then unfortunately he got injured. So I think there’s still some evaluation left out there on him.”
Foles’ first season with the Bears wasn’t what Nagy and Pace envisioned. In seven starts (and one half), Foles posted a 2-5 record. He completed 64.74% of his passes for 1,852 yards with 10 touchdowns and eight interceptions for a 80.8 passer rating.
“I do appreciate the way that Nick handled the entire season and it wasn’t easy,” Nagy said. “And we learned as we went through that thing, just how we work as coaches, how he works as a player. I know there’s all the talk about the connections that we all had together at different times in Nick’s career, and he grew a lot from when I had him as a rookie in 2012 to as a backup in Kansas City in 2016 to other coaches on staff that had him in different areas.
“You go back and you say when we ended up making the move for him, you look at that we weren’t able to have that offseason, which I do believe would have helped in a lot of different ways for him because things are different. You just can’t connect Kansas City and Philadelphia and say it’s the same offense. You can’t do that. But there’s a growing process there. I think that as we look at his situation, just like Ryan said, he went through and battled his tail off in regards to doing a lot of good things for us. And is there areas where he could improve? Absolutely. Are there areas we can improve as a coaching staff to help him? Yes.”
Ultimately, Foles was a disappointment. But Pace and Nagy are putting their faith behind Foles heading into 2021. Whether that’s genuine or not remains to be seen. After all, at this time last season, Leonard Floyd and Adam Shaheen were praised. And look how that panned out.
It’s clear that the Bears seem primed to make a move at quarterback this offseason — again — and it’ll likely come via the 2021 NFL Draft. Although the thought of Pace getting another chance to draft a franchise quarterback is one that inspires little confidence.
“We talk about the quarterback position and how critical that is to any team’s success and we understand that,” Pace said. “And that’s why it will be a big focus of us and a big decision for us.”
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