The Chicago Bears won’t enter training camp with a quarterback controversy, but that doesn’t mean the front office isn’t looking to fortify the position.
Brad Biggs of the Chicago Tribune reports the Bears interviewed Washington State quarterback Luke Falk at the Senior Bowl. Falk was a Davey O’Brien Award (given to college football’s best quarterback) semifinalist who threw for 3,593 yards and 30 touchdowns as a senior. He was a three-year starter who threw for 14,481 yards, 119 touchdowns, and 39 interceptions during his four-year career at Washington State.
Not bad for a former walk-on. Heck, those numbers aren’t bad for any college quarterback.
The Bears moved quickly to tear down and rebuild their quarterbacks room in the span of a few months in 2017 and re-shaping (behind Mitch Trubisky, that is) it isn’t out of the question a year later. The team cut Jay Cutler, allowed Matt Barkley and Brian Hoyer to leave as free agents only to bring Mike Glennon and Mark Sanchez into the fold as free agents before drafting Trubisky. Sanchez is a free agent and the Bears can save more than $11 million on the cap (with a hit of $4.5 million in dead money) if the team parts ways with Glennon in the offseason.
Listed at 6-3 and 211 pounds, Falk is WalterFootball.com’s sixth-rated and is projected to be picked in the third or fourth round. He isn’t a premier quarterback prospect, but one who completed a high percentage of passes (68.9 percent) and limited his turnovers (1.8 percent) during his three-year stint as a starter. Falk is familiar with a complex offense after running Mike Leach’s Air Raid attack in college, so it would be interesting to see how his knowledge of those concepts would translate to the West Coast/spread blend Matt Nagy and Mark Helfrich will cook up.
The Bears have other needs in the draft, but drafting a quarterback to develop as a backup who can start in a pinch wouldn’t be the worst use of a pick by a front office that insists on the importance of getting the position right.