(670 The Score) For something consuming so much of our current attention and concern, all we really understand about the Bears' quarterback competition is how in the dark it all is.
Mitchell Trubisky and Nick Foles are exchanging first-team reps in an effort to give all those involved in the decision enough evidence to settle on the better bet to finally make coach Matt Nagy's vaunted offense score more actual points. They're doing much of it on a back field purposely distant from the prying eyes of the beat reporters, leaving us to triangulate conclusions from their multiple perspectives. And every outcome can be followed by a reasonable caveat.
With no exhibition games to provide objective evidence and no documentary crews setting dramatic narratives, we know everything the coaches say about it is designed to get them to the end of the press conference without having revealed anything of substance. So we go with what we are told, trusting that so many mitigating factors are being considered -- which quarterback is out there with which personnel groups, which of any negative results is due to a receiver drop, a blocking error, a poorly-aligned split, bad route or slip. Even on the positive side, it's nearly impossible for us to judge if a good throw came after an incorrect read or misidentification of rush scheme or coverage. The point being, what appears successful to even professional onlookers might indeed have the coaches fuming about what it was really intended to be, and the converse can also be true -- what looks like a mistake could be no fault of the quarterback after he did everything that was asked of him.
At least when we have the practice games, we have the tape to pore over and talk through, giving us the chance to draw more informed conclusions about why something happened. With this, there's no crowd-sourcing the probabilities and no scoreboard.
Those who have already expressed a strong opinion on the choice are going to fall victim to the usual confirmation biases in this vacuum, cherry picking from reports subjectively. Coaches and executives will too, seeing what they have to see in a way that reinforces previous convictions.
If any team really wants to get one of these sideshows right -- or as close to it as possible in the most meaningful way -- the only thing to do is ask the players on both sides of the ball. Players can't be fooled by the same rhetorical sleight of hand that sells a justification to fans, because they know implicitly who gives them the better chance to win. This is the biggest risk in ultimately blowing the call, the loss of trust that comes from allowing individual agendas, financial commitments or optics to get in the way of the stated commitment to fair competition.
In a situation like this that gives us so little opportunity to judge for ourselves, make sure to monitor closely the reaction of the rest of the Bears roster to the news of the selection. They know.
Dan Bernstein is the host of the Dan Bernstein Show on middays from 9 a.m. until noon on 670 The Score. You can follow him on Twitter @Dan_Bernstein.
