SOME HEAVY SIFTING
Bears’ coaching staff will be scrutinizing every practice throw before deciding on starting QB
The Bears held their last padded training-camp practice Wednesday and will go through a light one Thursday before heading home to wait for cut day on Saturday.
The coaches, meanwhile, will begin the conclave.
Coach Matt Nagy, offensive coordinator Bill Lazor, quarterbacks coach John DeFilippo and others will gather inside Halas Hall this week to try to pick the starting quarterback: Mitch Trubisky or Nick Foles.
“It is not easy,” Nagy said Wednesday. “It’s not clear-cut.”
The Bears had hoped it would be. In the best-case scenario, the starter would have been apparent at least a week ago and allowed to increase his snap count accordingly. As it is, the Bears spent all of training camp trying to give Trubisky and Foles the same number of snaps on the same types of plays.
Perhaps the proverbial white smoke will rush out of the Halas Hall chimney Sunday, when the Bears reconvene for a short practice and weight-lifting session. Maybe it will come a day later.
Whenever it does, it will be the result of upcoming marathon film sessions. Coaches will watch — and debate — cut-ups of every single practice throw Trubisky and Foles made during the truncated camp.
“We’re not just going to say, ‘Was it complete or was it incomplete?’ ’’ Nagy said. “We’re going to dig really hard into the why. And then we’re going to look at situational football. And then we’re going to look at what’s around him: Is it 1 v. 2, 2 v. 1?
“And we’re going to just shut the door. We’re going to have our own opinions. And in the end, we’re going to make a decision.”
Not having to plan or run practices Friday and Saturday will help coaches clear their minds, Nagy said.
“We all have our own opinions of where we’re at,” Nagy said. “But you have these daily schedules and these daily scriptings that we’re doing just to get the next day ready. And so now what we can do as an offensive coaching staff is we can pull back. We get through [Thursday], and we’ll basically take every clip of every snap of both quarterbacks.”
Nagy rattled off areas in which both men have improved. Trubisky, he said, is staying in the pocket more to open up middle-of-the-field throws and keeping his vision downfield before checking the ball down. Foles, he said, has been receptive to the Bears’ playbook while also contributing some of his own ideas. He has carried himself as a leader, in and out of the huddle.
Still, if either quarterback had stood out, the Bears’ decision would have been made by now.
“We now have a library of film that we can evaluate and critique and judge and make decisions,” Nagy said. “That’s what we’re going to do. And then we’re going to make that decision. We’re going to move forward.
“Someone is going to get the job, and someone is not going to get the job. And they’re both going to have to handle that the right way because it’s a long season.”
Then, Nagy said, it’s the Bears’ job to make it work.
He knows the saying that having two quarterbacks means you don’t have any but claimed the franchise is comfortable with either man.
“We know what we have in these guys,” he said. ‘‘We feel really good about both of them. Being as brutally honest as I could be, it’s difficult . . . .
‘‘We’re at a point now where we can start hammering through where we’re at as a coaching staff. I think that’s what you guys are all waiting for. That’s what we’re waiting for.
“But it’s not easy, for sure.”