Bears coach Matt Nagy made a quarterback change on Sunday based on a gut feeling. His next move will be more deliberate.
Nagy spoke to PFT by phone after Sunday’s come-from-way-behind win over the Falcons, and he addressed among other things the decision to remove starting quarterback Mitch Trubisky for backup Nick Foles.
“Sometime, you have to go with your gut,” Nagy said, explaining that the decision came in the moment, based on the fact that the offense under Trubisky was struggling on third down and in the red zone. “It’s a feel you get as things go on.”
He said that he explained the move to Trubisky as tactical. “None of it is personal,” Nagy said he told Trubisky. “It’s all task-related.”
Nagy said that when the team returns to Chicago later tonight, he’ll huddle with the offensive coaches “to figure out where they are moving forward.”
He said they need to make a decision quickly, because they need to focus immediately on their next opponent, the Colts.
“We’ve just got to make a good decision,” Nagy said, emphasizing that “you have to take emotion out of [it].”
“If it’s Mitch, you roll,” Nagy said. “If it’s Nick, you roll. I don’t want it to be back and forth.”
More specifically, Nagy said he doesn’t want to do again what he did today. Even if what he did today worked.
The fact that Nagy doesn’t want to repeat what he did today suggests that the arrow may be pointing toward Foles. “Nick’s strength is his experience,” Nagy said. “Mitch’s strength is that he’s growing.”
To avoid further growing pains that could result in Foles entering the game to save the day, Foles may be the answer.
However it goes, the Bears have three win in three games. Those victories are money in the bank, and the Bears are moving in the right direction, even if they currently don’t know which direction the quarterback decision will go.
