In Matt Nagy’s presumed final game as Bears coach, he’ll have the quarterback he wanted all along.
Andy Dalton will start Sunday against the Vikings since rookie Justin Fields tested positive for the coronavirus. So instead of seeing if the future of their franchise can take another meaningful step forward, the Bears will hand the game to a 34-year-old pending free agent.
Nagy shouldn’t mind too much, though, because Dalton was Plan A for him going into a season in which his job was on the line. He believed he could save himself by relying on a veteran, though one with modest success in his career, rather than riding out the inevitable stumbles of a rookie.
Ultimately, Nagy didn’t get to make that choice. Dalton’s knee injury in Week 2 opened the door for Fields and public pressure swelled to the point that there was no going back once Dalton was healthy. He has still appeared in stints, but it’s been clear most of the season that Fields was the starter.
Dalton started the season opener against the Rams after months of Nagy talking about how sharp he was and how smoothly the offense would run with him, and the Rams plastered the Bears 34-14. He attempted just two passes deeper than 10 yards, throwing incomplete on one and getting intercepted on the other, and finished 27 of 38 for 206 yards and a 72.9 passer rating.
While it’s worth noting that he hasn’t gotten more than two starts in a row at any point and that certainly makes it difficult to find a flow, nothing about the rest of Dalton’s season suggested he was going to be the answer Nagy needed.
Nick Foles will be the Bears’ backup quarterback, and they have the option of flexing Ryan Willis up from the practice squad if they want a third available.In Matt Nagy’s presumed final game as Bears coach, he’ll have the quarterback he wanted all along.
Andy Dalton will start Sunday against the Vikings after rookie Justin Fields tested positive for the coronavirus. So instead of seeing if the future of their franchise can take another meaningful step forward, the Bears are forced to play a 34-year-old pending free agent.
Nagy shouldn’t mind too much, though, because Dalton was Plan A for him going into a season in which his job was on the line. He believed he could save himself by relying on a veteran, though one with modest success in his career, rather than riding out the inevitable stumbles of a rookie.
Nagy didn’t get to make that choice. Dalton’s knee injury in Week 2 opened the door for Fields and public pressure swelled to the point that there was no going back once Dalton was healthy. He has still appeared in stints, but it’s been clear most of the season that Fields was the starter.
Dalton started the opener against the Rams after months of Nagy saying how smoothly the offense would run with him, and the Rams plastered the Bears 34-14. He attempted just two passes deeper than 10 yards, throwing incomplete on one and getting intercepted on the other, and finished 27 of 38 for 206 yards and a 72.9 passer rating.
While he hasn’t gotten more than two starts in a row at any point and that certainly makes it difficult to find a flow, nothing about the rest of Dalton’s season suggested he could’ve been the solution Nagy needed.
Likewise, this season hasn’t been what Dalton needed.
He joined the Bears on a one-year, $10 million deal with the team promising him the starting job — that commitment, Dalton said, was how the Bears secured him amid other offers coming his way. Dalton viewed it as an opportunity to reestablish himself as a starting quarterback at 34 years old after spending a season as the Cowboys’ backup.
Instead, because of injuries and the acceleration of Fields’ timeline, he’ll close the season with just six starts. As he heads into free agency, his prospects are no better than they were either of the last two years.
Dalton believes if he hadn’t gotten hurt so early, his season — and the Bears’ overall — would’ve gone much differently. Nagy has said similar.
“I think about that all the time,” Dalton said Friday. “But I do understand that everything happens for a reason and trust in God’s plan over mine. I may not understand why it happened... but I know that I can trust that there’s good that’s come from it.
“There’s been a lot of growth for me as a person, as a player, since then. That’s some of the positive that you can take away from it. But I do think, ‘What would have happened if I didn’t get hurt Week 2?’”
The answer is probably that the Bears would still be out of the playoffs. Nagy’s idea that Dalton was a game-changer always seemed like wishful thinking.
He goes into the finale at 61.7% completions, an average of 231.3 yards over the four full games he played, seven touchdowns, seven interceptions and a career-low 76.8 passer rating.
If not for Fields’ 73.2, Dalton’s passer rating would be the lowest by a Bear who started at least five games since Matt Barkley posted a 68.3 in 2016.
Those are just footnotes on a wasted season in which Fields’ progress quickly became the sole focus. His development will be the biggest determinant of the Bears’ viability for the next several seasons.
Dalton, meanwhile, will try once again to find an opportunity to re-launch his career. When asked if he had any interest in re-signing with the Bears, he sidestepped.
“There’s a lot that’s gonna go on after this game,” he said.
That’s an understatement in the Bears’ case.
There’s minimal chance Dalton will be back. It’s doubtful he’d want to be anyway.
Instead, the Bears will proceed with Fields — almost certainly in a new offense under a new coach — and probably keep Nick Foles as his backup. He’s under contract for 2022 with a $10.7 million salary-cap hit, and they would take a $7.7 million dead-cap hit to let him go.
Given that he’s more likely to return than Dalton, it’d actually make more sense to play Foles in this game. But that’s sifting through minutia. Fields will ultimately steer the Bears to wherever they’re headed next.
