Bears QB Battle Called by Pro Football Focus for Nick Foles
The battle is over and Pro Football Focus calls it in Nick Foles' favor.
Mitchell Trubisky loses this quarterback battle to Foles, according to PFF.
The complicated analytical formula used?
"The Bears have indicated that this will be a legitimate competition between Foles and Trubisky, but it's hard to imagine Foles isn't the starter in 2020," PFF write. "He's simply the better quarterback."
Then they went on to call his ceiling higher:
"The highs for Foles have been pretty high—namely his 2013 season with the Eagles (eighth-highest passing grade in the NFL) and his back-to-back elite performances during the Eagles’ Super Bowl run in 2017. To be fair, the lows have been pretty low, but Foles has shown a ceiling that Trubisky hasn’t to this point."
PFF concludes the Bears have a better shot at postseason with Foles as quarterback than Trubisky.
The only other battles in question were at right guard, where Germain Ifedi wins out over Rashaad Coward, and at right cornerback, where rookie Jaylon Johnson is a winner over a cluster of veterans.
The only other comment PFF posted was about tight end, where they took the opportunity to take another shot at Jimmy Graham for not getting into the 60s in their secretive point system the last two years. They also pointed out Cole Kmet will be closely watched and could take away Graham's job.
Longtime critics of the Bears and Ryan Pace, PFF also takes a shot at Kmet by pointing out he was just their 98th best player last year.
Other quirks of this lineup are they posted it as a four-man defensive front. The base defense is actually a three-man front with Bilal Nichols joining Akiem Hicks and Eddie Goldman, but the Bears are in the four-man front almost two-thirds of the time.
Also, they have projected Cody Whitehair as starting center and James Daniels at left guard.
This one hasn't officially been announced by coach Matt Nagy yet. It's still possible Whitehair starts out at guard again.
Here was PFF's Bears opening day lineup :
PFF Projects
Offense
QB: Nick Foles
RB: David Montgomery
WR: Allen Robinson
WR: Tedd Ginn Jr.
Slot: Anthony Miller
TE: Jimmy Graham
LT: Charles Leno Jr.
LG: James Daniels
C: Cody Whitehair
RG: Germain Ifedi
RT: Bobby Massie
Defense
DI: Akiem Hicks
DI: Eddie Goldman
EDGE: Khalil Mack
EDGE: Robert Quinn
LB: Roquan Smith
LB: Danny Trevathan
CB: Kyle Fuller
CB: Jaylon Johnson
CB: Buster Skrine
S: Tashaun Gipson
S: Eddie Jackson
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