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The Jacksonville Jaguars are trading veteran quarterback Nick Foles to the Chicago Bears for a compensatory fourth-round draft pick (pick No. 140), according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter.
QB trade: Jacksonville is trading QB Nick Foles to Chicago for the Bears’ compensatory fourth-round pick, sources tell ESPN.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) March 18, 2020
Bears’ coaches such as Matt Nagy have worked with Foles in past and know him well.
The deal is for the Bears’ compensatory fourth-round selection. According to ESPN’s Field Yates, the Bears will inherit the final three-years of Foles’ deal, which will allow the Jaguars to save $3,087,500 with a dead cap hit of $18.75 million.
The Bears will inherit the final three-years of Nick Foles' deal, which pays a base value of $50M. He slots in as their starter.
— Field Yates (@FieldYates) March 18, 2020
The Jaguars will take on a dead cap charge of $18.75M for 2020, while stockpiling another draft pick as they go through a franchise transition.
The Jaguars will have 12 draft selections once all trade deals have been completed, including two first-round selections, three fourth-round picks, two fifth-round selections, and two sixth-round selections along with the team’s second, third, and seventh round selections.
In exchange for QB Nick Foles, the Bears are giving up their compensatory fourth-round pick, No. 140 overall, which now gives the Jaguars 12 picks in the upcoming draft.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) March 18, 2020
Foles originally signed with the club as an unrestricted free agency in 2019 on a four-year $88 million contract with $50 million in guaranteed money. The veteran quarterback would however be placed on the team’s short-term reserve/injured list after breaking his left clavicle just 11 offensive snaps into the team’s Week 1 matchup against the Kansas City Chiefs.
Upon his return in Week 11, Foles would continue to struggle, never able to fully immerse himself in the Jaguars’ offense only to be benched for rookie quarterback Gardner Minshew II at halftime during the team’s week 13 matchup against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
During his time in Jacksonville, Foles completed 77 out of 117 (65.8%) of his passes for three touchdowns, and two interceptions.
The Foles experiment was doomed nearly before it began. Foles nearly retired from football following his first opportunity to become a team’s franchise quarterback. The 2019 season was much tougher for the veteran quarterback than his time with St. Louis, he said following the season — “10 times as hard as St. Louis.”
The move will reunite Foles with former Bears head coach Matt Nagy, who worked with Foles when the quarterback was a member of the Chiefs in 2016, along with the Eagles in 2012 during the veteran quarterback’s second season in the NFL as a member of the Philadelphia Eagles’ coaching staff.
Foles would also of course reunite with former Jaguars offensive coordinator John DeFilippo, who is currently on the Bears’ staff as the team’s quarterbacks coach. DeFilippo was also Foles’ quarterback coach in Philadelphia during the team’s Super Bowl run.
After months of not indicating which direction the franchise will go as far as the quarterback, the Jaguars have clearly made their intentions known today. Minshew II will be the team’s starting quarterback for the foreseeable future.
Minshew II was widely thought of as the leagues most impressive rookie quarterback after completed four separate fourth-quarter-comebacks, while completing 285 out of 470 (60.6%) for 3,271 yards, 21 touchdowns and just six interceptions in 12 starts.
The Jaguars will now only have only Minshew II and Joshua Dobbs at quarterback entering the new league year. The team traded their original 2020 fifth-round selection for Dobbs following Foles’ injury in week two of the 2019 regular season.
We will update this story as more information becomes available.