This will be the first true quarterback competition the Chicago Bears have had since 1994. Mitch Trubisky and Nick Foles will enter training camp on equal footing. From there every snap and every throw will be monitored. Whomever makes the better impression becomes the starter for 2020 and perhaps beyond. The final decision for this rests with head coach Matt Nagy, but is his opinion the one to trust most? Not in this case. That would be Bill Lazor.
The new Bears offensive coordinator has something Nagy doesn’t in this instance. That being experience. He has lived through quarterback competitions in his career before. He got his first taste as an assistant coach in 2004 when the job was up for grabs between former 1st round pick Patrick Ramsay and veteran Mark Brunell.
It was there he got a vital education on how to determine who the right choice was by Hall of Fame coach Joe Gibbs.
“I remember during one of the preseason games Coach Gibbs told me to stand on the sideline and just watch this one particular quarterback when it was his turn,” Lazor told Bleacher Report. “When he went out there on the field I watched, and I saw everyone in the huddle become a better player.”
“It’s funny, because sometimes you want to break it down with sports science and analytics. There are many other ways to look at how a guy is performing, even in practice,” Lazor said. “But there’s also something to a veteran coach like Coach Gibbs watching the effect a quarterback has on the whole team. That’s something really hard to quantify.”
Bill Lazor understands what to look for beyond the numbers
One thing to note is it’s never a good idea to go strictly by the numbers. Lazor learned that a few years later in Philadelphia. This time it was veteran Michael Vick going against up-and-coming second-year kid Nick Foles. When looking at their preseason stats, Vick held a slight edge in terms of TD passes and yards. So the team stuck with him. After a 2-4 start though, they made the switch to Foles who finished the year out 8-2.
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Preseason numbers are highly deceiving. Rather than worry about the stats, it’s more about how the offense executes when the quarterbacks are on the field. Who operates with more efficiency, makes the smarter reads, adjusts into the right alignments and so on. The job of a good quarterback isn’t to put up gaudy numbers. It’s to make the offense as a whole perform better.
