Bears QB Battle Called by Pro Football Focus for Nick Foles

Pro Football Focus posts projected Bears opening day lineup and puts Nick Foles in as starter over Mitchell Trubisky

The battle is over and Pro Football Focus calls it in Nick Foles' favor.

Pro Football Focus, the analytical website with a clandestine grading system for NFL players, has posted its projected Chicago Bears starting lineup for opening day and the quarterback was the only real question mark.

Mitchell Trubisky loses this quarterback battle to Foles, according to PFF.  

The complicated analytical formula used?

"The Bears have indicated that this will be a legitimate competition between Foles and Trubisky, but it's hard to imagine Foles isn't the starter in 2020," PFF write. "He's simply the better quarterback."

Then they went on to call his ceiling higher:

"The highs for Foles have been pretty high—namely his 2013 season with the Eagles (eighth-highest passing grade in the NFL) and his back-to-back elite performances during the Eagles’ Super Bowl run in 2017. To be fair, the lows have been pretty low, but Foles has shown a ceiling that Trubisky hasn’t to this point."

PFF concludes the Bears have a better shot at postseason with Foles as quarterback than Trubisky.

The only other battles in question were at right guard, where Germain Ifedi wins out over Rashaad Coward, and at right cornerback, where rookie Jaylon Johnson is a winner over a cluster of veterans.

The only other comment PFF posted was about tight end, where they took the opportunity to take another shot at Jimmy Graham for not getting into the 60s in their secretive point system the last two years. They also pointed out Cole Kmet will be closely watched and could take away Graham's job.

Longtime critics of the Bears and Ryan Pace, PFF also takes a shot at Kmet by pointing out he was just their 98th best player last year.

Other quirks of this lineup are they posted it as a four-man defensive front. The base defense is actually a three-man front with Bilal Nichols joining Akiem Hicks and Eddie Goldman, but the Bears are in the four-man front almost two-thirds of the time.

Also, they have projected Cody Whitehair as starting center and James Daniels at left guard. 

This one hasn't officially been announced by coach Matt Nagy yet. It's still possible Whitehair starts out at guard again.

Here was PFF's Bears opening day lineup :

PFF Projects

Offense

QB: Nick Foles

RB: David Montgomery

WR: Allen Robinson

WR: Tedd Ginn Jr.

Slot: Anthony Miller

TE: Jimmy Graham

LT: Charles Leno Jr.

LG: James Daniels

C: Cody Whitehair

RG: Germain Ifedi

RT: Bobby Massie

Defense

DI: Akiem Hicks

DI: Eddie Goldman

EDGE: Khalil Mack

EDGE: Robert Quinn

LB: Roquan Smith

LB: Danny Trevathan

CB: Kyle Fuller

CB: Jaylon Johnson

CB: Buster Skrine

S: Tashaun Gipson

S: Eddie Jackson

Twitter: BearDigest@BearsOnMaven