A lot of people aren't happy about the Nick Foles acquisition by the Chicago Bears. They feel it was a safe move by GM Ryan Pace to placate a coaching staff that knows him well. The team should've been more aggressive. Offer more money to Teddy Bridgewater. Be a little more patient and sign Cam Newton. Hell, throw caution to the wind and sign Jameis Winston. Sure he threw an ungodly amount of interceptions last year but he also had 5,000 yards.
The truth is the Bears operated with a clear knowledge of their own situation in mind. This is not a football team that requires a savior at the quarterback position. Sure that would be nice but the odds of it happening were always long. Instead they wanted somebody steadier. A guy who could give them okay-to-good play on Sundays with fewer clunkers than they got with Mitch Trubisky.
Think about this.
Foles has a career passer rating in the NFL of 88.2. That's his career average. Would anybody care to know what record the Bears have under Matt Nagy when the quarterback posts a passer rating of 88.2 or better in a game? That would be 11-2. This isn't a misprint. When this team gets what is considered average play from a quarterback, they win. Period. One of those losses came in overtime and the other came after giving up a late 4th quarter lead.
Last season Foles managed to start and finish two games. He had ratings of 92.2 and 81.2. That is hardly a fair sample size to judge him as the reason Jacksonville was so bad last season.
Nick Foles is not THE answer. He's AN answer
The bottom line is the Bears dug themselves a deep pit when they traded up to get Trubisky in 2017. They sunk so many resources into his development, gambling it would all pay off. Now people are expecting them to simply jump out of that pit immediately. It doesn't work that way. Most times it takes a couple of years for a franchise to recover from missing on a quarterback in the 1st round.
The Raiders flopped in the worst way with Jamarcus Russell in 2007. After that, they went through a series of different options before they finally landed Derek Carr in 2014. The Baltimore Ravens missed badly on Kyle Boller in 2003. They had to survive on the veteran QB market for a time before they managed to grab Joe Flacco in 2008.
People need to stop thinking of Foles as some sort of white knight riding in to save the day. He's more like a mercenary hired to keep the townspeople safe long enough for help to arrive. That is what the Bears are paying him to do. It may not be glamorous, but it's a job he can handle.
