Receivers Look to Get on Same Page with Nick Foles
Allen Robinson thinks quarterback Nick Foles helped the Bears overcome Atlanta's lead Sunday with his mouth possibly as well as he did with his arm.
Foles hasn't had the chance to work much with Robinson or any other receiver for that matter, but his communication abilities made up for some of the lack of experience with his targets and the offense in the 30-26 win over the Faclcons.
"He's been the same since he got here, a very over-communicative guy," Robinson said. "I think that’s the proper word to use. But he's a dude that always communicates. Whether he's playing, whether he's not playing, just communicating what he sees, communicating things like that, and that's just the kind of guy he is.
"So he brought that to us on the sideline, in the huddle."
Robinson wasn't suggesting Foles talks too much. Rather, he lets players know what they need to do to make plays. Nor did he intend it as a slight of Mitchell Trubisky, who was benched for Foles.
"I mean, as any player with coaches, other players teammates and stuff like that, I mean, that's what you like to have, just the communication to be clear," Robinson said. "But you know, again, he’s been like that since Day 1."
The perfect example of this was the way Foles adjusted where he wanted Anthony Miller running his route on the game-winning 28-yard touchdown pass. He told Miller to run the route beyond the normal conclusion and all the way across field to the "L" on the end zone turf if the Atlanta blitzed. They did, and it worked for the TD.
It helped to have a quarterback communicating in this situation because really the only work the first-team receivers had with Foles was training camp's 16 practices, and he didn't get to take all the first-team throws at that point because Mitchell Trubisky was splitting them in the QB battle.
When training camp ended, Robinson and the first-team receivers worked only with Trubisky, so they've got a lot of catching up to do.
But Foles will get all the snaps this week.
"What you saw there from mine own eyes was a guy who just felt comfortable, in command, saw the field really well, was able to get to some things in his own mind that helped that play, and just the confidence with which he was throwing the football," passing game coordinator Dave Ragone said of Foles. "Remember, I mean, he didn't have any time with these guys for the last couple of weeks and for him to go in there, execute the offense at still a very high level, being able to throw the ball under duress and I think the best example of that was the last throw which he made to Anthony Miler. That's a special throw."
This was the game-winning touchdown pass of 28 yards mentioned by Robinson in relation to communicating.
"Exactly the type of throw he had to make under the duress that he made it, that's a winning football play and he made that for us," Ragone said. "And you just see a guy out there who's been on the big stage before, who's played a lot of NFL games and doesn't get sidetracked by too many things you can tell."
Twitter: BearDigest@BearOnMaven
