On Day 1 of Chicago Bears training camp, Mitchell Trubisky and Nick Foles were very close in their performance.
It isn’t saying much, but on Day 1 of padded practices which saw media in attendance, the Chicago Bears quarterback competition had a narrow winner.
According to Adam Hoge of Yahoo Sports, Nick Foles had a slight edge over Mitchell Trubisky. However, that slight edge doesn’t come with much positivity in terms of overall offensive production.
Let’s start with the bad news first. Everything that has come from the top Bears reporters after Monday’s practice states that the offense had too many balls on the ground and many inconsistencies.
Meanwhile, the defense looked fantastic and played like they knew they were an elite bunch. Haven’t we heard this story before? Oh, that’s right — last year.
Multiple reports say there were several poor reads, a plethora of dropped passes and some bad throws.
Per Hoge, Trubisky was pretty bad from the get-go. He did have one nice deep ball that was dropped, which certainly hurt.
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“He followed that up with a bad decision on a forced pass over the middle that was well covered and should have been picked off by safety Deon Bush.” (Hoge)
Did Trubisky see any completions? Sure. It wasn’t all bad news. However, Hoge detailed an interesting facet of this quarterback situation. There was a completion from Trubisky to his receiver which was thrown behind the target.
Quarterbacks coach John DeFilippo says he is going to be “hyper-analyzing” the tape, which means a completion thrown behind the quarterback’s target will still hurt that quarterback in his eyes — and again, Trubisky had one.
As for Foles, he was also inconsistent, per Hoge. However, he finished much better than Trubisky. Foles had one incompletion that hit a receiver in the helmet early on, which isn’t a great sign for someone trying to beat out the presumed starter in Trubisky.
Later in the practice, Foles had one incompletion due to a drop and also wisely threw a ball away — which Hoge noted as a positive. I would have to agree with Hoge on that one, because Trubisky struggled in that area; making the right reads and knowing when to throw it away.
So, why does Foles get the edge? Again, we turn to Hoge:
“There wasn’t much separation between the quarterbacks in Monday’s practice, but I’ll give a slight edge to Foles because he finished strong and avoided the risky throw that Trubisky got away with.”
At the moment, I would also agree with Hoge when he says he believes Trubisky would be named the starter if Week 1 was tomorrow. But, that’s not saying much. There’s still a solid three and a half weeks before they line up against Detroit, and much could change between now and then.
When Nagy met the media Monday, it was very interesting to hear him say that he’ll stretch out the quarterback competition as long as he possibly can. Does this mean we could see a starter finally named on Thursday or Friday before Week 1? Wouldn’t that be wild.
