Nick Foles trade grades: Bears make critical error dealing with Jaguars

Nick Foles is on the move to the Chicago Bears as they’re sending a mid-round draft pick to the Jacksonville Jaguars. Is this a good move for either team?

Just a year ago, Nick Foles was one of the biggest names hitting the free-agent market, something the Jacksonville Jaguars jumped at the opportunity to take advantage of. But after a season where Foles was injured and sixth-round rookie Gardner Minshew emerged, the four-year, $88 million contract they signed him to seemed like an albatross. Which has led Foles to be heading to the Chicago Bears in 2020.

On Wednesday, the Bears traded a compensatory fourth-round pick to the Jaguars in exchange for Nick Foles. Chicago had long been rumored to be in search of competition for fourth-year quarterback Mitchell Trubisky. Now they have it in the veteran and Super Bowl LII MVP.

As a result of the trade, the Bears will take on the final three years and $50 million of Foles’ contract while the Jaguars will take on $18.75 million in dead cap but also continue to add valuable draft capital while a full-scale rebuild takes place in Jacksonville:

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But the question remains: Did the Bears or Jaguars make the right move with this trade? Let’s hand out a grade to each team to see how they fared.

Bears trade grade

This is a complete and total blunder by the Bears. What about Nick Foles, save for three playoff games with the Eagles, has said that he can be a viable quarterback and not just a top-tier backup in the league? Frankly, there’s nothing there as evidence of that.

Whenever Foles has been given the opportunity to start outright in his career, it has not turned out well for them. That’s why the Jaguars were looking to trade him. And to make it worse, they wanted so badly to get out from under his contract that many people surmised that Jacksonville would have to give up a draft pick to make it possible. Instead, the Bears gave up a fourth-round pick.

The only reason the Bears don’t get a failing grade for giving up that kind of draft capital for Nick Foles is because, simply, they needed someone that could push or replace Trubisky. For all of Foles’ faults, he may be better than the No. 2 pick from the 2017 draft. And with the rest of this roster, that might be enough to make the playoffs. But as a long-term move, it’s just abysmal from general manager Ryan Pace.

Final Grade: D

Jaguars trade grade

Up to this point in the 2020 offseason as the Jaguars have continued to sell of assets such as Calais Campbell and A.J. Bouye, I’ve been quite critical of the franchise. They handed out one big contract after another and, when it finally came time to pay the bill, they yelled “abandon ship” and started selling off assets to start from scratch.

Trading Foles, however, is not that type of move. While signing Foles to the contract they did last offseason was not a good move, there is still a good chance that he would’ve been an upgrade over Blake Bortles. What they couldn’t have predicted, however, was Minshew emerging as a viable quarterback option as a sixth-round pick. That turn of events simply made the Foles contract untenable.

As mentioned when talking about the Bears, many people assumed the Jaguars would have to give up draft capital to get out of the Foles deal at this point. Instead, they were able to get Chicago to add another top-150 pick to their arsenal, giving them 12 selections in the 2020 NFL Draft now to rebuild with. For that, this is the first trade that’s a clear win for the Jaguars.

Final Grade: A