Bears Back to a Familiar QB Face

Nick Foles will start Sunday against Seattle because of injuries to both Justin Fields and Andy Dalton, and practice squad QB Ryan Willis could be the backup.

On the day after Christmas, the Bears will count on St. Nick.

The ankle injury plaguing quarterback Justin Fields will keep him from starting Sunday, and backup quarterback Andy Dalton is unavailable due to a groin injury. So the Bears will be counting on Nick Foles to start against the Seattle Seahawks.

Foles, known throughout the Philadelphia area as St. Nick after the Super Bowl run of 2017 as a backup quarterback, was the Bears backup last year until replacing Mitchell Trubisky in Week 3. He started through Week 10, then played only once more in mop-up duty against Jacksonville during an easy win.

Fields' ankle injury was suffered against the Minnesota Vikings and he was held out of practice on Thursday and Friday after the team had only a walk-through on Wednesday. He is officially listed as questionable.

"His injury has not gotten worse since the beginning of the week, it's getting better," Bears coach Matt Nagy said.  

However, it's not improving fast enough so the Bears will keep a close eye on whether Fields heals enough to back up Foles. If not, then practice squad quarterback Ryan Willis will be the backup for the game.

Willis was signed last week and last played in The Spring League, a low-level developmental pro league. He was the quarterback for the league champion.

Foles looked sharp enough to Nagy, and had a good preseason playing behind Dalton and Fields with third-string players and players who were cut. 

"I know just the practice we came from right now he really was out there doing a lot of good things," Nagy said. "You can see the timing."

Foles took all the first-team snaps in Friday's practice.

The situation led Nagy to point out the team's quarterback depth.

"There's not a lot of teams that can go to a quarterback like Nick and feel good about it," Nagy said. 

Dalton was out with a hand injury, but Nagy said he also suffered a groin injury just before he went on the reserve/COVID-19 list last week. He is off the COVID-19 list but now the groin injury is bothering him worse than his left hand injury.

"We came out at practice the other day and it just started feeling a little bit worse," Nagy said.

Also, Nagy announced right tackle will be played by Germain Ifedi and not Larry Borom. Ifedi started last week as Borom, a rookie who had replaced him due to injury, was available but just off the COVID-19 list.

Ifedi has been the source of controversy this week because he was involved in an incident when he shoved teammate Teven Jenkins due to an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty.

Bilal Nichols has returned from the COVID-19 list. Also out for Sunday's game are Jason Peters (ankle), Xavier Crawford (concussion) and Jakeem Grant.

Marquise Goodwin and Eddie Goldman are questionable, although both have been able to go through full practices the last two days.

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