LAKE FOREST (670 The Score) -- Much of Bears coach Matt Nagy's press conference Saturday was spent talking about his third-string quarterback, a Super Bowl MVP who signed an $88-million contract in 2019.
One year later he was traded to Chicago for a Day 2 pick, almost won the starting job in camp and orchestrated a 16-point fourth-quarter comeback in his first appearance. Now Nick Foles can barely get a rep off of Andy Dalton, a former backup who was immediately -- like, immediately -- named the starter, and rookie Justin Fields, who has never played a real NFL snap but is already clearly the most talented of them all. The future of the Bears' quarterback position may look pretty rosy, but the present still feels pretty weird.
"I would say probably 95% of people in Nick's situation would handle it completely opposite of the way he's handled it," Nagy said. "From the time that I brought him in and told him that he was going be the third-string quarterback, and I have to give so much credit to him because he accepted it. He understood it. Was he happy about it? No. But he understood it."
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Realistically, there's just no place for Foles on the Bears' roster. The job is Dalton's until it's Fields', and keeping Foles around in the likelihood that they're both unavailable at one point makes little sense for everyone involved. Whether it was an honest assessment or just some shrewd salesmanship -- "(Foles) told me feels like he's in the best shape, physically and mentally, of his career," he said -- Nagy admitted Saturday that he knows keeping Foles around for development's sake may not be a luxury the Bears can afford much longer. In typical Foles fashion, Nagy added, it's not something that ever comes up.
"I don't talk to him about that, he doesn't talk to me about it," he said. "We just don't go there because, again, that's out of our control. He's worrying about doing everything he can to just be great for us, and that's what I like about our relationship. He's happy with where he's at here, and he's in a good place."
Even before the Bears drafted Fields with the No. 11 overall pick, the plan was to have Dalton enter the season as the undisputed starter, Nagy said. And while drafting Fields doesn't change that approach (for now), making him compete for or even split second-team reps wasn't an option they considered. The Bears seem perfectly content to let the three quarterbacks work together, within their defined roles, until someone, anyone -- maybe an AFC South team with several connections to Foles -- comes calling.
"You're talking about a Super Bowl MVP and a guy that's started a lot of games," Nagy said. "He's had a really interesting career in so many ways that I just think that he deserves that. I mean, anybody that's had the career he has is somebody that's always going to be – for all teams, as a third-string guy – teams are going to look at guys like him.
"For us, we feel like with Andy, Justin and Nick, our quarterback room is pretty good. And you need to have a quarterback in this league to win games."
Cam Ellis is a writer for 670 The Score and Audacy Sports. Follow him on Twitter @KingsleyEllis.
