Bears coach Matt Nagy backtracked on Monday and clarified that he intends to reveal the identify of Chicago’s starting quarterback sometime early next week.
Nagy insinuated over the weekend that he would refrain from naming a starter — choosing between Mitchell Trubisky and Nick Foles — until the Bears opened the regular season at Detroit on Sept. 13.
“I guess I misinterpreted what I meant by that,” Nagy said during a video call. “What I meant by that, to keep it real simple, was that there was not going to be a quarterback named this week that we’re in right now, up until that first week. So I apologize if I made that gray. But there will be no waiting until the middle of the week or the end of the week for that to happen. That wouldn’t be fair to our team and it wouldn’t be fair to the quarterbacks.”
Nagy suggested the announcement could occur between Monday and Wednesday of next week.
“Honestly, we don’t know that,” Nagy said. “But it would be in that time frame in there somewhere. You will know by the time most teams usually know. We’re not hiding anything. We’re going through for us this whole process and we don’t even know that yet, to be quite honest. So we’re talking through those situations and what’s best and how to go about it. So we’re just really honestly not there yet.”
Trubisky and Foles have been locked in a battle for the starting job throughout training camp, evenly rotating days on the first team since padded practices began Aug. 17.
In 2018, Nagy’s first season as coach, the Bears went 12-4 as Trubisky passed for 3,223 yards, 24 touchdowns and 12 interceptions and rushed for 421 yards and three touchdowns.
Trubisky, while playing much of last season with a shoulder injury that required surgery in January, ranked 28th in the NFL in total QBR (39.4), tied for 27th in touchdown passes (17), 21st in passing yards (3,138), 32nd in yards gained per pass attempt (6.1) and 28th in traditional quarterback rating (83.0) as the Bears finished 8-8.
Chicago went out and traded for Foles — the MVP of Super Bowl LII — at the onset of the new league year. The Bears later declined Trubisky’s fifth-year option and announced an open quarterback competition in training camp.