The Nick Foles era in Chicago has been a mess from the get-go.
From needing to trade draft capital to take on a re-worked contract in order to create a QB competition. To losing the camp battle … only to take over in Week 3 after one poorly played half by Mitchell Trubisky. And then ultimately losing his job to Trubisky after suffering an injury, then being demoted to QB3 status after bringing in Andy Dalton and Nick Foles … well, in the words of former Bears coach John Fox, “It’s all a problem.”
And that problem isn’t going away without mucking up some more stuff along the way.
Albert Breer (The MMQB) hears the Bears “will listen on Nick Foles” when it comes to teams inquiring about the quarterback’s availability. But there’s a “but” and a big one at that with Breer adding: “But I’ve also long gotten the sense they aren’t going to send him somewhere he doesn’t want to go.”
In other words, Foles essentially has a double no-trade clause in his back pocket. Because if a contract that features $14.3M in dead money and a $7.6M cap loss wasn’t an anchor, allowing Foles to dictate where he can go does the rest of the work. It’s not as if the Bears haven’t been trying (they have!) — it’s just that they have failed to do so. And in a way that it makes it awkward for all parties.
Sometimes, I see reports like the one Breer shares as a sign that trade offers for a player are underwhelming. And that could very well be the case. But if teams have a feel for the situation, then the low-ball offers will come because the Bears aren’t dealing from a position of strength in this scenario. It’s all such a mess from a player whose last press conference virtually confirmed his desire to be anywhere but Chicago.
Further complicating this matter is that keeping Foles as QB3 in Chicago means that someone at a skill position will lose their roster spot. And in an offseason that has seen the Bears lose a starting corner and their starting left tackle while keeping a reserve tight end, needing to cut a player to keep a third quarterback on the roster would be a moldy cherry on a crud sundae. Ideally, it won’t come to that. But at this point, I’m not holding my breath.