While fans may have to wait a couple more days for the official announcement, it became increasingly clear on Wednesday afternoon that Mitch Trubisky will be QB1 when the 5-5 Bears head to Green Bay on Sunday night.
For starters, Nick Foles has yet to practice since he suffered a hip pointer in the final moments of the Bears' Week 10 loss to Minnesota. The first injury report of the week was released shortly before Matt Nagy's daily press conference, and while Foles – who's considered day-to-day – was listed as 'DNP', Trubisky was a full participant.
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"For us, what we’ve got to do is, we have to start with the availability," Nagy said. "Otherwise, the other stuff doesn’t matter. For us right now, the only thing that we can do – we weren’t sure at the end of this last game that we played what our situation was going to be like with both quarterbacks, with Mitch and with Nick. And so right now, for me and for us, it’s literally day-to-day for Nick as to where he’s at."
Nagy also admitted that while evaluating Foles begins with his availability, the coaching staff is also weighing his production over the last seven games before they name a starter. He wouldn't say when the team expects to make the official announcement, but did hint that it will, more than likely, happen before Sunday afternoon.
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"As we work through this and see where things are at and have a good feel -- I would say for us that at some point in time, it's good for all of us to get through this and not have to worry about that -- everybody, right?" he said. "Just to be able to go through it and have a good feel with where we're at. Regardless of that with where we're at, with Nick being day-to-day right now and Mitch is feeling good and he gets out here practicing. That's what we're working with right now."
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For Trubisky, the (apparent) opportunity provides the QB one last chance to showcase himself over the last six games he's under contract in Chicago. Nagy spoke at length about the changes he's seen over the last two months, complimenting the fourth-year QB on how he handled the demotion and noting that he was "very, very impressed" with how Trubisky responded during the first couple of weeks that Foles took over. Trubisky's growth has been clear as day, Nagy said, and he called the possibility of him getting another start "exciting."
"I have all the confidence in the world in him," he added. "At times, when you think it's the worst feeling in the world what you're going through, sometimes those moments are the best thing that ever happened to you.
"If he ends up starting and he's our guy and we end up going into this game, I don't know what that final story will be for this game and moving forward. But I do know that what I've seen of Mitchell, the way that he's handled meetings, the way that he's handled practice in that role, I've seen a change in him -- and for the good."