Chicago Bears (Photo by James Gilbert/Getty Images)
The Chicago Bears’ quarterback rebuts a popular criticism.
The Chicago Bears are off and running in training camp, and the quarterback battle between incumbent Mitchell Trubisky and challenger Nick Foles is set to begin in earnest.
Since no fans are allowed at training camp this year, fans will have to get their fix through still photos posted by the team on social media, and reports from Bears’ insiders. One such report revealed some information about Foles that goes a long way to dispel one of the criticisms he has faced since joining the team.
While Foles has experience playing in an Andy Reid style offense, it has long been argued that Trubisky actually holds the advantage because head coach Matt Nagy’s version is sufficiently different from that of his mentor.
On its face, that argument seemed to make a lot of sense. Nagy has most certainly seemed to put his own spin on the offense — even if some fans don’t like the results.
However, recently Foles made a comment that appears to significantly downplay that concern. As tweeted by the NFL Network’s Stacey Dales, Foles was asked about the quarterback competition and highlighted his level of comfort in the offense.
Specifically, Foles said: “the beautiful thing is there’s a lot of similarities in this offense from [the] Philly offense, so I feel right back at home.” He continued, “I love this offense. I love the verbiage. I’ve been in this offense. I know what I can do in this offense.”
Those sound like the words of a very confident quarterback who wants to reaffirm a shortened pre-season should have little if any impact on his ability to compete for the starting quarterback job. Yes, he may not have the familiarity with the wide receiving corps like Trubisky does, but a veteran like Foles should be able to develop that fairly quickly.
Look, Foles has bounced around from team to team, encountering new wide receiving corps along the way. As a backup, he’s had to cultivate the skill of being able to quickly form a rapport with new receivers, so this should not be a big concern.
The larger concern was whether he could pick up Nagy’s version of the Andy Reid offense with an abbreviated camp, and his confident words this past week should put those questions to bed.