Getty QB Nick Foles of the Chicago Bears has been a trade candidate for a while now.
We all saw it. If you were watching the Tampa Bay Bucs play the Chicago Bears Thursday night, it was pretty hard to miss the wildly animated conversation between Chicago quarterback Nick Foles and head coach Matt Nagy on the sidelines.
It happened early on in the fourth quarter, and it happened immediately after Nagy disrupted the rhythm Foles and the offense had just gotten into. Foles wanted to run the hurry-up because it was working. Nagy interrupted the flow by bringing in new personnel for a red zone play he had his eye on. The series resulted in a field goal, and afterward, Foles jogged to the sideline and pled his case to Nagy.
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Nick Foles teaching Matt Nagy how to football
Matt Nagy on Sideline Convo: ‘I Agree With Him’
That conversation “wasn’t [Foles] criticizing me or me criticizing him,” Nagy said when asked about it this week. The Bears coach elaborated further, revealing some details he and Foles talked about at the time:
“I agree with him; like once you get going and you’re in a little bit of a tempo, we kind of had them on their heels and his point was, ‘Hey, once we got ’em on their heels like that, let’s keep them there and let’s do some things.’ Now, the issue you run into is that when you’re in the red zone like that, you have game-plan plays that you scheme all week in the red zone to get into those situations. That’s kind of those ones where I think Nick and I learn OK, if that’s something that he’s feeling, let’s figure out a way to communicate, ‘OK, to get in a situation, let’s talk through that so the next time that happens, we’re on the same page.’ … I like the fact that he’s communicating that way, and now it’s just, for us, we’ve just got to keep growing as to, ‘OK, next time we get in that situation, how do we communicate through that to put our team in the best situation possible.”
Seeing Foles communicate with Nagy on the sidelines like that was almost refreshing, in that it was never something we saw from Mitchell Trubisky. It also displayed Foles’ ability to read and understand defenses.
Foles is telling Nagy that when they play with tempo and a play works-don’t stop. Keep pushing the tempo and not allowing the defense to get new people on field or talk about plans. He wants tempo on the ball dictating to the D
Look — Nick Foles is not the most physically gifted quarterback out there. But he’s a cerebral one, and he understands how to work with what the defense is giving him. Nagy knows this. Whether Nagy is willing to set aside his own ego and put his quarterback’s opinions over his own during games remains to be seen, but at least the Bears head coach seems open to it.
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Foles Promises Offensive Improvements, Says This Bears Team is ‘Special’
After their win Thursday evening, Chicago is 4-1, and they remain fully in control of their own destiny, which suits Foles just fine. The Bears have a 10-day break between games, playing the Carolina Panthers next week. Foles says the team plans to use the time to become more in tune with this offense.
“We get a little bit of a break here which is nice, just for everyone to kind of take a breath for a moment and then get back to work and allow us to look at ourselves and see where do we want to go from here offensively,” Foles said.
“There’s a lot of areas to improve and we all know that, and that’s exciting because I feel like we’re putting these pieces together, and it reminds me of some special teams I’ve been on where the first part of the season, you go through this and then you finally figure out what works and what you want to be and you start rolling.”
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