While many people may have been shocked to see Nick Foles come in to relieve Mitchell Trubisky in the middle of Week 3, the Football Aftershow crew were not surprised.
“Let’s not act like the writing wasn’t on the wall here,” said Alex Brown. “This didn’t just happen, right? You bring in Nick Foles, you pay him a good bit of money. You bring in a guy that can run this offense-- has proven he can run this offense at a high level. You don’t pick up Mitch’s fifth-year option.
“This is writing on the wall. You don’t want to see it? Fine.”
Stay in the game with the latest updates on your beloved Chicago sports teams! Sign up here for our All Access Daily newsletter.
To be fair, not picking up Trubisky’s fifth-year contract wasn’t a guarantee his future in Chicago was over, even if it wasn’t a great omen. Just look at Kyle Fuller. The Bears also decided against picking up his fifth-year option, but he played his way into an extension with the team.
As for the money the Bears are paying Foles: the Bears and Foles eventually restructured his contract so they were only on the hook for three years and $24 million, with $21 million guaranteed, instead of owing him $56.9 million. Still, averaging $8 million a year is a significant bump from the $5 million a year Chase Daniel averaged.
But the play over all of 2019, not just the first two and a half games of this season factored into the decision too.
“Coach Nagy’s been watching this awhile, thinks he has the weapons to put the ball in the end zone, and you’re just not scoring points,” said Olin Kreutz. “One of the biggest hints you had was coach Nagy changed his coaching staff in the offseason, but he doubled down on his system. (Bill) Lazor runs his system. (John) DeFilippo ran his system as well.
NFL
“You just knew coach Nagy wasn’t going to keep watching this. Because if you turn the film on, the all-22, the coaching film, you see receivers getting open. The scheme in his mind is working and you just need someone to execute it.”