CHICAGO – With the Chicago Bears season off the rails right now and their odds of still making a playoff run statistically not all that bad, the question of the moment, hour and season has come down to this.
Which quarterback gives the Bears the best chance to win given the realities of the offensive line?
The ride Mitch out of town on a rail mob is being shouted down these days by the at-least-with-his-legs-he-has-to-be-better-than-Nick crowd and logic suggests that with the shambles the offensive line is in, they may be right.
The first big complicating factor though is will either be healthy enough to go a week from Sunday?
When asked after the Vikings game if he was considering a change at quarterback Matt Nagy said, “With regards to both guys right now with Mitch and him (Foles), they’re both a little banged up. We’ll take this bye week and we will self-scout ourselves and we will see the wheres and the whys.
“And whatever we need to do, we will do in a lot of different areas.
“When you lose four games in a row, it’s all on the table, everything’s out there.“
What is quite notable about that is when asked the same question after the Rams, Saints and Titans games Nagy responded with a clear not now.
What has changed is there is just no longer any denying that Foles is not making all the right decisions that Nagy felt he would, and even when he does, his accuracy has been way off.
I asked quarterbacks coach John DiFilippo if he agreed Foles is having an accuracy problem and if he thought it was from anticipating pressure or mechanics, “He and I talked about those things privately. That’s a totally fair question," DiFilippo said.
“But at the same time, those are things he and I are constantly talking about.
“There are times where maybe our base gets a little too wide or we’re trying to move in the pocket and our front shoulder gets too high and the ball sails on us. Or we don’t have a definitive reset.
“So it’s a constant work in progress for sure.”
No one should expect “Flip” to throw his guy under the bus and I for one would be disappointed if he did, so let’s just say Foles is in a slump, and we have to constantly acknowledge the offensive line is a big part of the problem.
The next question then becomes does Mitch give the Bears an advantage with his legs and I thought the guy to ask that was passing game coordinator Dave Ragone.
"Yeah, I think any time you talk about the ability of the quarterback to extend a play, in my mind there's a lot of advantage to that.
“Living with Mitchell and his ability to do that, there has been times where it's worked out and there's times where you watch the film and you're like 'Man I wish he wouldn't have left right there.'
“The reality is when you look at the flip side of the defense, they know when you have a quarterback that can move or is mobile and can get first downs or extend plays, the defense has to play it differently.
“That doesn't mean that quarterbacks who cannot necessarily move like that can't be effective and win Super Bowls and win a lot of games.
“But there are advantages when a quarterback can move that help the offense and hurt the defense."
Again no tire tracks on anyone but the wind does seem to be blowing in a certain direction.
At the moment we have no clear indication whether or not Trubisky’s shoulder or Foles’ hip will allow either to go against the Packers, but reading Nagy’s eyes and tone when it was discussed, and the fact they haven’t made a move to bring in another guy with at least some experience my best guess is at least one will.
My next best guess is he’s hoping it’s Mitch, not to escalate or even solve the QB controversy, just to try anything they can to give all 53 guys and all 15 coaches a chance to win another game.