During last week’s game against the Atlanta Falcons, Chicago Bears head coach Matt Nagy made a big decision. Nagy decided to bench his starting quarterback for three years, Mitch Trubisky, and replaced him with his veteran backup Nick Foles. Trubisky was not playing well in the game and Foles brought to spark Chicago’s struggling offense. The move paid off, as Foles led the Bears to victory in Atlanta, bringing Chicago to 3-0 on the season. The next day, Nagy officially announced that Foles would be the new starting quarterback going forward.
The move comes after almost three years of anywhere from decent to mediocre quarterback play from Trubisky. Chicago Bears GM Ryan Pace drafted him with the second overall pick in the 2017 draft with high expectations from Bears fans. In his rookie season, he put up decent numbers, but nothing too special. His sophomore season was where he started to do better, as he threw 24 touchdowns and gave up 12 interceptions. With his fair play and a great defense, the Bears went to the playoffs, where they lost to the Philadelphia Eagles, led by Nick Foles. 2019 was not good for Trubisky, who only threw 17 touchdowns and gave up ten interceptions. The Bears did not have a good year either, as they went 9-7 and missed the playoffs. These losses lled Chicago to try something drastic for the offseason. Firstly, Mitch Trubisky’s contract was declined as he remained on the team another year. Secondly, the team traded away a fourth-round NFL draft pick to the Jacksonville Jaguars for their backup quarterback Nick Foles.
Foles himself has an interesting backstory. He came into the NFL as an exciting rookie, throwing 27 touchdowns and only two interceptions in his second year as the starting quarterback for the Philadelphia Eagles. However, Foles started to decline in his following years, which ultimately saw him bounce between multiple different teams before he ended up back on the Eagles in 2017 as a backup. When Philadelphia’s starting quarterback Carson Wentz went down with a torn ACL near the end of the season, Foles was called on to lead the team to the playoffs. Foles did precisely that, as he led the Eagles to a playoff run that culminated with a Super Bowl win against the New England Patriots. In 2018, Foles was called on again to lead the Eagles into the playoffs after Wentz suffered another injury. Despite beating the Bears in the first round, the second round eliminated both Foles and the Eagles. After a mediocre year in Jacksonville, Foles found himself in Chicago, now the starting quarterback.
Foles’s first game as starting quarterback did not go well. The Bears lost 11-19 to the Indianapolis Colts, with Foles throwing for 250 yards and only throwing one touchdown. Chicago next plays on Thursday, October 8th, against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. It will be interesting to see if Foles rebounds from his sub-par performance against the Colts. If he does not, the calls to put Mitch Trubisky back in will probably grow louder.
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