Things weren’t just bad, they were ugly for the Chicago Bears offense in 2019. Despite being a middle-of-the-pack unit the previous season, Chicago’s offense ranked among the bottom five units last year.
Naturally, most of the blame has been placed on quarterback Mitchell Trubisky, who struggled mightily during a season where he was supposed to take the next step in his development. While Trubisky’s erratic play was certainly to blame, he was far from the only reason why the offense stumbled.
Still, Trubisky’s inconsistent play was cause for concern to the point where general manager Ryan Pace had to bring in an experienced veteran in Nick Foles to challenge Trubisky for the starting job.
Pro Football Focus Fantasy, who believes Foles will win the starting job, wonders if Foles can take Chicago’s passing game from awful to average in 2020.
It’s almost certain that Foles is under center in Week 1 despite coach Matt Nagy’s insistence on going through an open competition. Sure, Foles hardly looked like a world-beating talent last season, but it was hardly an ideal situation behind the Jaguars’ patchwork offensive line. He’s more than capable of orchestrating Matt Nagy’s RPO-heavy offense at a high level considering his past success running similar schemes with the Eagles. Of course, Nagy was Foles’ QB coach in Kansas City back in 2016.
Foles has functioned as an above-average QB when not coached by Jeff Fisher or Doug Marrone. We’ll have a better idea of whether or not Nagy deserves to be in that conversation after 2020, but either way we shouldn’t expect this passing game to join the league’s elite units after failing to add many difference-makers to the receiving core or offensive line. High-end fantasy production is unlikely for both QBs in an offense that boasts limited receiving talent behind Allen Robinson and Anthony Miller.
The Bears quarterback competition can’t begin until training camp begins, and it will carry into a shortened preseason. While Trubisky figures to hold an advantage with a small sample size — given he’s been the starter for the last three years — don’t count Foles out.
Foles was brought to Chicago for a reason, as we’ve seen there were some more affordable options on the market. He has experience effectively running an offense similar to Matt Nagy’s in Philadelphia and Kansas City.
