Ryan Pace reveals why the Chicago Bears signed Andy Dalton to be their new starting quarterback: ‘We’re excited to have him’
The Chicago Bears video calls with the media Friday boiled down to a primary question.
What makes general manager Ryan Pace and coach Matt Nagy believe the Bears can win more with quarterback Andy Dalton than they did with Mitch Trubisky or Nick Foles?
The Bears signed Dalton to a one-year, $10 million contract in mid-March, and Pace confirmed Friday that Dalton will be the starter when the Bears resume team activities. Foles, whom Pace acquired in a trade with the Jacksonville Jaguars last spring, will be a high-priced backup after just seven starts with the Bears. And Trubisky, whom Pace drafted No. 2 in 2017, will be in Buffalo as the Bills backup.
Pace pointed to Dalton’s 10 years of experience with the Cincinnati Bengals and Dallas Cowboys, his leadership, his durability in starting 142 games in his career and his decision-making as qualities that attracted the Bears after the Seattle Seahawks made clear they weren’t trading Russell Wilson at that time.
Dalton’s most successful stretch as a quarterback is more than five years ago. Dalton, 33, made the last of his three Pro Bowl appearances in 2016 and hasn’t led a winning team since 2015, though the Bengals’ decline certainly wasn’t all his doing.
But Pace noted Dalton had the second-highest completion percentage of his career at 64.9% last season in nine starts with the Cowboys after taking over for the injured Dak Prescott. And Pace stressed Dalton fits with the Bears offense.
“When you go through it with our scouts and coaches, he can handle the drop-back game, he can handle the RPOs, the play actions, the movements,” Pace said. “And we just felt, as we went through those free-agent quarterbacks, he’s one of the more complete quarterbacks that we evaluated in free agency, and we’re excited to have him.”
Of course, Pace and Nagy similarly touted Foles’ experience, leadership and fit when they brought him in to compete with Trubisky to be the starter last spring. After Nagy benched Trubisky in Week 3, the Bears went 2-5 under Foles as he threw for 1,852 yards with 10 touchdown passes, eight interceptions and an 80.8 passer rating.
Neither Pace nor Nagy has delved too deeply into why things went so awry under Foles. They pointed to personnel issues — most notably on the offensive line — as contributing to the poor play. Nagy noted Foles joined the Bears during an odd offseason, split reps with Trubisky as they competed for the job and then served as the backup for the three games before starting.
Those circumstances were not enough, however, to convince them to leave the offseason open to a Dalton-Foles competition. Both made it clear they believed naming Dalton the starter now was the better option, with Nagy pointing to the need to give him the reps.
“Depending on what happens with OTAs and the offseason, we’ll take every rep that we can get with the ones and put him as the starter and we’ll do the same thing in training camp,” Nagy said.
Not to be ignored while Pace and Nagy are talking about Dalton as the starter is the Bears staff is in the process of evaluating which quarterback prospect they potentially could select in the April 29-May 1 draft.
Pace, Nagy and director of player personnel Josh Lucas were at the pro day for Alabama quarterback Mac Jones earlier in the week. With the No. 20 pick, the Bears must examine the likelihood they would be able to obtain a quarterback they like in the first round — some analysts believe the top five quarterbacks will be scooped up quickly — and also examine their Day 2 options.
Pace didn’t go into detail about what went wrong with his selection of Trubisky four years ago, but he did talk about the current “connected” vision with the scouts and coaches, apparently the new buzzword to replace “collaboration.” And he said he believes he has grown as an evaluator since then.
“It’s just us being connected on the style of quarterback that fits our offense, what we’re looking for from an intangible standpoint,” he said. “It all comes back to the personnel department and the coaches being connected in every move we make. That’s not just quarterback. That’s every player we add to our team, and the longer we are together, the more connected we are, the better we are with our decision-making, and that’s been proven over the last couple of drafts.”
It potentially could be the first time in Nagy’s head coaching tenure that he will help pick a quarterback in the draft. He said he is “super excited” to sort through the options with Pace, even though evaluations are more difficult this year without the February scouting combine, which was canceled because of COVID-19. The NFL instead put the focus on pro days.
“When you’re there at the combine you’re able to see these (quarterbacks) throw and see the ball come out of their hands, see their footwork,” Nagy said. “You get to see every one of those guys, from the top guy to the bottom guy. Right now, you just don’t have the luxury of doing that.
“It’s a challenge, but we look forward to it. There’s a lot of good quarterbacks in this draft.”
If the Bears draft and develop a quarterback, perhaps it will change their longer-term outlook at the position. But until then — or barring the surprising re-emergence as Wilson as a trade option — the Bears are putting their faith in Dalton that he can be better than what they had last year.
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