Tyler Bray Promotion Only Disappoints Conspiracy Nuts
It provided a feast for conspiracy theorists and in the end only disappointed all of them.
The Bears made practice squad quarterback Tyler Bray eligible to play on Sunday by putting him on the 53-man roster on Saturday, fueling outrageous social media controversy over so inconsequential move.
Was it a ruse of some sort? Did Nick Foles or Mitchell Trubisky suffer some sort of Trey Burton-type of injury which no one knew about until too late? Has Trubisky been demoted to third string? Was there a trade coming of Trubisky? Maybe someone had a "personal issue" out of the blue like Roquan Smith did last year.
Come up with your favorite kooky theory and insert here.
Then on Sunday they left Bray on the inactive list anyway, so none of this overreaction even mattered. The theorists were left to pout.
Except, the Bears did make the move so there had to be a reason.
"Tyler's done a good job of, you know, understanding where we're at as an offense," Bears coach Matt Nagy explained on Monday. "To be able to bring him up and kind of help Nick out as well, they have a really good relationship. You know having him come up and just be a voice for him I think sometimes those are parts of the game that you know is nice to have."
Bray was in Kansas City when Foles was, so they know each other.
"So we had that," Nagy said. "Obviously we could all look back and say well, we scored 11 points and that's real, but there's really nothing to it other than that. Mitch had a really good week of practice, he was great all week long. You know, it was not an easy week for him. It's different all week long being in that role and he handled it great and Mitch was awesome on the sideline yesterday."
It all sounds well and good, although what's wrong with having Trubisky be that guiding hand of support? He's supposed to know the offense well now and actually was playing before being benched so you'd think he'd have a better idea what's going on than a third-string quarterback who has played four NFL snaps since arriving in the league in 2013.
It almost sounds as if someone thought Trubisky wasn't up to being the backup.
Beyond this, why couldn't Bray just do this anyway even if wasn't on the 53-man roster?
Well, short of dressing him up in a Staley the Bear outfit, he's not supposed to be on the sideline if he's not a player eligible to play.
"OK, yeah, so I'll be more specific," Nagy said after being prodded further. 'It's more of him being on the sideline, of having him on the sideline on game day, that's all. Does that make sense?"
The practice squad quarterback doesn't get to be on the sideline. It's that simple. End of story.
All that talk about trades sure sounded fun, though.
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