The Jacksonville Jaguars had a busy offseason in 2020 and a lot of the transactions made were to reallocate money as they entered the season with a questionable cap situation. On defense, that included the trades of A.J. Bouye and Calais Campbell, two players who were Pro Bowlers at least once with the team.
On offense, the Jags were able to put Nick Foles’ contract off on the Chicago Bears at the cost of taking a massive $18.7 million cap hit on the season, of course. This was doable because of the 2019 performance and extremely inexpensive contract Gardner Minshew II provided the team with, leaving them eager to see what they had in the sixth-round pick.
While in the real world the Jags got future cap relief from the decision to trade Foles, in the virtual world of ‘Madden NFL 21’ they may have made another mistake — at least according to Yahoo Sports. In their annual NFL season simulation, the Chicago Bears ended up winning Super Bowl LV and the MVP of the games was, you guessed it — Foles.
Here is what writer Anthony Sulla-Heffinger had to say about Foles in his 20 takeaways for the 2020 season simulation.
16. Nick Foles(yes, Nick Foles)wins NFL MVP. If you’ve made it this far, congrats, because you’re about to enter the “Madden” Twilight Zone. Foles finished with a league-best 4,801 yards, 44 TDs, 5 interceptions and 70 percent completion rate. If this was “Madden 2014,” I might buy this since Foles was coming off his 27-touchdown breakout with the Eagles. In 2020, I’d be hard pressed to find something less likely to happen.
In addition to Foles’ solid year and showing in the Super Bowl, the Bears also registered a 14-2 season before heading to the playoffs and beating the Kansas City Chiefs for the Lombardi Trophy by a score of 42-24.
17. Oh wait, I spoke too soon! The Bears had the league’s best record, finishing 14-2 before eventually advancing to Super Bowl LV against Kansas City.
18. Which of course … They won. The Chicago Bears won Super Bowl LV 42-24, with Nick Foles throwing for six touchdown passes and tying Steve Young’s record from Super Bowl XXIX.
Simply put, this could be a long shot in reality, but if it happens, it feels like the Bears elite defense would have to pull the weight. Basically, this would point to the Bears being a similar team to the 2017 Jags where the defense was a very good unit, but the quarterback play was sporadic.