It’s wild to think about how so much has changed in a year, especially when it comes to the Chicago Bears quarterback room. Mitchell Trubisky is gone. Tyler Bray is nowhere to be found. Andy Dalton is the new kid on the block. Justin Fields is the future … and then there’s Nick Foles.
The lone holdover from last year might as well have one foot out the door. Because one year after being in a competition to be QB1, Foles has been demoted to QB3 status.
With that change in mind, Foles took to the mic yesterday for his first comments since offseason changes. I’ve pulled together and commented on some of the highlights below, but you’ll want to check out his comments in their entirety in the video at the bottom of this post. Here we go.
• Maybe Foles is just talking that talk, but it sounds like he thinks he is a better quarterback than what he put on tape in 2020: “There’s a lot of reasons that I can’t talk about to be honest with you,” Foles said when talking around why things haven’t worked out in Chicago. “It’s one thing to create something, it’s another thing to know when not to speak about something. And this isn’t the right time or place to speak about it.”
• If I didn’t know any better, I’d say those are the words of someone who might welcome a trade to someone who knows what to do with him. Someone like Colts Head Coach Frank Reich? “You all watched the 2017 season and the playoffs where he changed the offense and built it around me, and you all saw what happened,” Foles said, while referencing that Super Bowl LII run. “He understood my mentality as a player and he was able to build it around me and put me in a successful position.”
• I have a new goal in life, and it is to find someone who loves me the way Foles loves his former offensive coordinator: “Listen, Frank Reich is one of my favorite, if not my favorite, coaches of all time. He understands me as a player. He understands me as a person. But you know, I haven’t had any talks with them. I’m a Chicago Bear right now. But he knows me, he understands.”
• Unfortunately, until the Reich-Foles reunion takes place, Foles is a member of the Bears.
• But here’s the good news on that front. Foles sounds like someone who is truly embracing his role as QB3: “I go out there with the three group, and I always tell those guys, I talked to them today: ‘I don’t care what the frickin’ coverage is or if you think you’re dead on a route, I’m feeling it right now so be ready. I can fit it in anything, and I showed that. That’s the beauty sometimes of being a three, is you can sort of do your own thing cause they’re focused on the other guys, which is cool, so I get to be me, which is fun. I’m having fun and I’m out there with those guys. I think y’all have watched; we’ve been dicing it up a little bit, we’ve been taking shots and I’m trying to help those guys be better. They know that they’re playing with a good quarterback and I’m going to help those guys get better so they have an opportunity to make the team here or somewhere else.”
Seriously … where was this guy last year?
Maybe the new Nick Foles will bring something back in return in a trade. Whether it be with the Colts or another team aspiring to add to their quarterbacks room.