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Bears' Nagy Praises Nick Foles for Knowing Playbook Amid Trubisky Competition
May 16, 2020
As NFL teams have been unable to conduct any in-person workouts with players, Chicago Bears quarterback Nick Foles has been spending his time getting familiar with the playbook.
Per Jason Lieser of the Chicago Sun-Times, Bears head coach Matt Nagy praised Foles' ability to adapt to a new system of play-calling two months after being acquired from the Jacksonville Jaguars:
"It's like riding a bike. He's been through some different offenses, even from the last time we were together in Kansas City. But once you present somebody like Nick the playbook and they start looking at it, all of a sudden it just clicks.
"You start remembering it and you just start retraining your brain from what you knew in the past year or couple years. There's still terminology differences between all of us, but that doesn't take much. And Nick's a smart guy."
The praise for Foles comes as the Bears are preparing to enter training camp with an open competition at quarterback.
Nagy told reporters Friday that the preseason will be when the coaching staff starts focusing on evaluating Foles and Mitchell Trubisky.
"That's the best time for us to be able to get the evaluation process going," he said. "And so we need to get as many reps as we can to be able to see what they're doing when we do it."
Trubisky is facing a prove-it year in 2020. The 2017 No. 2 overall pick had his fifth-year option declined earlier this month, allowing him to become a free agent after next season. He was named to the Pro Bowl in 2018 but regressed last year with 3,138 yards, 17 touchdowns and 10 interceptions in 15 starts.
Foles is hoping to rebound after an injury-plagued 2019 with the Jacksonville Jaguars. He threw for 736 yards, three touchdowns and two interceptions and went 0-4 in four starts.