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Who can win the job of starting quarterback for the Chicago Bears, Mitchell Trubisky or Nick Foles?
The truth is that it hardly matters. In the long run, both will lose.
In the long run, the immediate winner of a quarterback battle that is sure to dominate NFL starters in and out of Chicago all summer long is unlikely to win much on the field and will almost certainly not keep the job going anyway.
There will be a lot of noise. It already is.
Trubisky, the 2017 No. 2 overall pick trying to save his job in a contract year, is “motivated” by the presence of Foles, who won a Super Bowl MVP with the Philadelphia Eagles, collapsed magnificently as a member of the Jacksonville Jaguars and now it’s a bear.
Chicago quarterbacks coach John DeFilippo, who will presumably play a major role in evaluating Trubisky and Foles at camp, wants to see “the juice” of the final winner, whatever that means. And Bears new wide receiver Ted Ginn Jr. believes Trubisky can avoid the highest-paid and most successful veteran.
Get ready now for weeks of wild speculation and even wilder bravado.
But all we know for sure is that the Bears consider it an open competition, and we can deduce from their actions: They rejected Trubisky’s fifth-year option for 2021 shortly after acquiring Foles for a fourth-round draft pick, which could Believing Foles has a better chance of becoming the solution for them in the most important position in the sport.
But because the pressure is so high for the Bears to be successful right now Considering their expensive and aging roster, and because they’ve invested in both Trubisky and Foles, the fate of this quarterback battle seems obvious. One will “win” the competition this summer, his leash will be impossibly short, he will be replaced the moment he fights remotely, and then the “loser” will experience the same turbulent journey.
Matt Ludtke / Associated Press
Despite high expectations after making clear progress as a sophomore, Trubisky averaged a minimum of 6.1 yards per NFL attempt while executing the league’s fourth-lowest-scoring offense last year. And it was probably not a coincidence.
The Chicago offensive was often quite conservative in 2019, but Trubisky was also one of the less efficient deep passers-by in the league, and he was even worse on those pitches in his 2018 “breakup” season. Among the 27 quarterbacks who have attempted at least 100 passes who have covered more than 15 yards in the past two years, only Josh Allen of the Buffalo Bills has a lower rating on such passes that Trubisky.
“There wasn’t too much of a difference between Trubisky’s 2018 and 2019 seasons on a shot-by-shot basis,” wrote Steve Palazzolo of Pro Football Focus, eerily, “but he received much more help from game creators and had better overall luck in 2018 “.
Even under those circumstances, the 2018 Bears offense ranked 20th in terms of DVOA (Defense Adjusted Value Above Average) at Football Outsiders and Chicago failed to experience postseason success.
Meanwhile, out of two peripheral runs in 2013 and 2017, Foles has been a mediocre NFL quarterback. Those heat spells cannot be ignored, but it is important to recognize that neither of them lasted for a long time.
He posted a ridiculous passer rating of 118.6 over 11 games to close the 2013 regular season, but was the seventh lowest-rated passer in the league in 2014. After a move to then-St. Louis Rams, He was even worse on paper in 2015, and beyond that, he traveled to Kansas City and eventually returned to Philadelphia as a backup.
Foles got hot again, and at the perfect time, when he led the Eagles to a title instead of an injured Carson Wentz in 2017. But even then, he completed just 54 percent of his passes in three regular-season starts. He struggled as the team’s Week 1 starter in 2018 and threw four interceptions in two postseason games in relief of a newly injured Wentz in that year’s postseason.
Stephen B. Morton / Associated Press
Foles performed so poorly when he was healthy in Jacksonville that the Jags abandoned him after just four starts. Less than a year after guaranteeing the former Super Bowl hero more than $ 50 million, Jacksonville decided he was better with 2019’s sixth-round pick Gardner Minshew II, who completed less than 60 percent of his passes and recorded a rating. under-90 passer in the last month of his rookie campaign.
Among the 42 quarterbacks who threw at least 100 passes in 2019, only five averaged less than 6.5 yards per pass attempt: the Pittsburgh Steelers endorse Mason Rudolph, the Detroit Lions endorse David Blough, the Miami Dolphins endorse Josh Rosen, Foles and Trubisky. And while Foles’ four-start sample size is small, his average yards-per-attempt dating from 2015 is just 6.4. Trubisky’s rate-based numbers were better in his first two seasons, but the significant regression in a third season of 15 starts is almost as daunting as an alternative that was always bad.
Nor does the “What have you done for me lately?” Proof, but a broad look at the numbers based on rates is not more encouraging.
In the past six seasons, 39 quarterbacks have attempted at least 1,000 passes. The only members of that group with lower passer ratings during that span than Trubisky are Foles, Joe Flacco, Brian Hoyer, Josh McCown, Blake Bortles, and Brock Osweiler.
When fall comes, all but one of those boys will be a backup or out of the league. The other will lead the Bears into battle against the Detroit Lions on September 13.
If everyone remains relatively healthy, also a concern considering that Foles has never started more than 11 games in a season, both Trubisky and Foles are sure to see plenty of action this year in Chicago. But there is considerable evidence that neither will succeed. When that inevitably happens, the organization will try to forget that Trubisky was a bear and will once again embark on the endless search for a franchise quarterback.
The Foles could stay until 2021, but only because, according to Spotrac, it would have cost the Bears $ 15.7 million to cut it the next offseason. The boss will soon realize that there is no reason to delay a new quarterback search, because, like Trubisky, the 31-year-old is extremely unlikely to experience sustained success in Chicago or elsewhere.
Jay Cutler couldn’t do it, and Kyle Orton was not the answer. Neither Rex Grossman nor Jim Miller nor Cade McNown nor Jim Harbaugh. It is only a matter of time before Trubisky and Foles join that list. The quarterback’s future is not on the Bears’ current roster.
The longer it takes for the team to realize that, the longer the suffering will continue for a fan base that hasn’t experienced a playoff victory since 2010.
Brad Gagnon has covered the NFL for Bleacher Report since 2012. Follow him on Twitter, @Brad_Gagnon.
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