WINNING UGLY FINE WITH FOLES
QB points out Bears are 5-1, even though offense still isn’t clicking
Quarterback Nick Foles’ adrenaline rush hadn’t worn off yet.
He danced to Meek Mill’s ‘‘Dreams and Nightmares’’ — the Philadelphia rapper’s beats always remind him of his magical 2017 season — in Club Dub after the Bears’ 23-16 victory Sunday against the Panthers in Charlotte, North Carolina.
When he walked out of the locker room, Foles realized — being the most in-the-moment quarterback his coaches have seen — that the Bears are in a good place: 5-1 despite their offense not looking the part.
Properly hyped, Foles launched into a 558-word rant when asked whether this is what the Bears had become: an inconsistent offense that wins ugly.
‘‘I would first say: ‘Would you rather lose pretty or win ugly?’ ’’ he said. ‘‘I think that we’d rather win ugly. I think that is the common thing, so I think it tells you a lot about our team. Is this who we are offensively? We want to improve. We want to get better. We want to have rhythm. But ultimately in the NFL, it’s about winning games.
‘‘It doesn’t matter how you do it; it just matters that you get it done. If you put up 50 points and you lose a game, those 50 points don’t mean anything.’’
The Bears shouldn’t have to choose. In the modern NFL — one in which scoring is up and crowd noise urging on the defense is down — points are king. Playoff teams need to score, and legitimate Super Bowl contenders must score at will.
Despite their record, the Bears won’t be either unless they figure out how to do that. NFL teams were averaging 25.7 points entering Sunday. The Bears are averaging 21.3.
On Sunday, both their touchdowns came with a short field — after an interception by Tashaun Gipson in the first quarter and after a missed field goal by Joey Slye in the third.
Foles posted a 70.2 passer rating, his third-worst mark in the last three seasons, and threw a Mitch Trubisky-like interception at the Panthers’ 9. He averaged 5.07 yards per attempt, his third-worst showing since 2016.
The Bears tried to manufacture a deep shot — ‘‘They’re good, we need more of those,’’ coach Matt Nagy said — but a flea-flicker in the third quarter yielded only a pass-interference call. Foles threw for three gains of more than 13 yards — a product, Nagy claimed, of the Panthers’ defense being designed to thwart deep shots.
‘‘We can fix what we’re doing,’’ Foles said. ‘‘It doesn’t happen overnight. Offenses don’t get fixed overnight, and sometimes they don’t get fixed throughout the course of years. You see that in the NFL. There have been teams that have been bad offensively for a very long time. We’re not one of those teams.’’
They’re not?
“I WOULD FIRST SAY: ‘WOULD YOU RATHER LOSE PRETTY OR WIN UGLY?’ I THINK THAT WE’D RATHER WIN UGLY.”
NICK FOLES
‘‘We’re a team that is young offensively,’’ Foles said. ‘‘We’re growing, we’re getting to know each other, we’re figuring out who we are and we’re doing it . . . as we’re winning these games. And I think that is what is important.
‘‘Now, we’re not going to get complacent and say: ‘Hey, man, we’re 5-1. This is it.’ No. We’re sitting there in the locker room after the game talking through it: ‘We gotta be better here. This is what we gotta do. Communication here. Route-running here. Hey, we gotta be able to run the ball here.’ ’’
Those conversations added to his caffeinated postgame showing.
‘‘That excites me with these guys,’’ Foles said. ‘‘I’m exhausted. I can’t wait to take a nap on the plane. I am hitting a little bit of adrenaline right now. But once I hit that bus and that plane, I’ll be out.’’
For those looking for Foles to apologize for the Bears’ 5-1 record, keep dreaming.
‘‘Great teams find a way to win a game,’’ he said. ‘‘Bad teams win with prettiness.’’