Allen Robinson not worried about contract extension with Bears
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Kevin Patra
AROUND THE NFL WRITER



Allen Robinson's best catches | 2019 season
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Entering the final year of his contract in Chicago, Allen Robinson was a candidate for an extension before the COVID-19 pandemic caused most NFL teams to pause on long-term deals due to uncertainty about the future salary cap.
Despite the ambiguous future, which could include revenue reduction next season, if the 2020 campaign is altered, Robinson isn't worried about getting a new deal right now.
"If something gets done, something gets done," Robinson said, via SI.com. "But at the end of the day that's left up to the Bears and my agent. But for me personally, to be quite honest, I don't really concern myself with that too much.
"I'm just looking forward to this 2020 season. I'm definitely excited for it. I'm definitely ready to get going. Whatever happens, happens."
Robinson has been the Bears' most consistent offensive weapon the past two seasons, including generating 1,147 receiving yards on 98 catches with seven TDs last season for an offense that was otherwise rudderless.
Even with sub-par quarterback play, Robinson proved he's a playmaker who can beat defenders in close quarters and help out his signal-callers on off-target throws. Fans in Chicago have been calling for Robinson to get an extension for months. None has come yet, and with the looming questions about the future salary cap, both sides could be hesitant to agree to anything in the coming months.
Robinson said he's been working out with Mitchell Trubisky multiple times a week during the league shutdown. The connection with the incumbent quarterback didn't have the veteran receiver picking sides in the debate between Trubisky and Nick Foles when it comes to who will start for Chicago under center in 2020.

"To be quite honest, I think that I feel confident regardless," Robinson said. "I think it's on the staff on what they want to see. Because it doesn't really come down to me, as Allen Robinson.
"You know, it's a person who has to lead a whole group of men. That has to lead the offense, has to lead the team. I'm just a piece to the puzzle. For me, it's going to be a fun training camp. I'm really looking forward to training camp."
Robinson might just be a piece of the puzzle, but he's a massive slice in Chicago. If the Bears don't keep the 26-year-old around long-term, someone will swoop in at some point and scoop up the underrated receiver

Matt Nagy: Mitchell Trubisky has taken QB competition 'head-on'
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Kevin Patra
AROUND THE NFL WRITER




The prevailing assumption suggests that the Chicago Bears didn't trade for Nick Foles to sit him behind Mitchell Trubisky, but rather to supplant the incumbent starting quarterback.
Joining NFL Network's Good Morning Football on Monday, Bears coach Matt Nagy reiterated that Trubisky has handled the situation with aplomb and expects the two QBs to compete for the job whenever offseason workouts begin.
"(Trubisky) has been really, really good in the fact that he's taken this head-on," Nagy said. "He's accepted it. He understands it. We're all so competitive, but we're human, too. There is a realness to the fact that 'OK, you're going to bring somebody else in here and have me compete' initially it's probably a shock. But then after that, it's like, 'let's go.'"
Over the past several weeks, Nagy has repeatedly discussed the expectation that Foles and Trubisky will compete for the starting job. However, after the Bears declined the fifth-year option on Trubisky, signs seem clear that a changing of the guard is coming in Chicago.
The expected outcome in any competition is that Foles should outperform Trubisky, who is coming off a rough season.
Nagy, however, insists that Trubisky will get a legit shot to keep the gig, and noted the 25-year-old quarterback has handled Foles' addition like the organization had hoped.
"That's the part that we as coaches say you know what this is how we're going to make the Bears better," Nagy said. "We're going to have competition throughout our entire team. There are other competitions going on right now. Obviously, this is the focal point, and these guys have been great. I'm excited to see how it goes when we get to training camp, and we get to the preseason games and then to the season. They'll both handle it really well. Again, when you're honest with people, it makes things in life so much easier. These guys are competitors, and they're good people. They're going to make it work."

Given the injury history of both quarterbacks, there is a good chance that Nagy knows he'll probably need each to play at some point in 2020.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SjM6yGEO2sM

Yes. We all knew that years ago. Where were you?

The drama continues with Kristin Cavallari and Jay Cutler
An anonymous report in Us Magazine paints a poor picture of the former Bears quarterback.
By Sun-Times staff  May 28, 2020, 3:05pm CDT
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He is a yes man.

Raiders LB Kwiatkoski 'can't wait' to prove he's a full-time starter
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Kevin Patra
AROUND THE NFL WRITER



Silver breaks down how Raiders 'shored up' defense
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Linebacker Nick Kwiatkoski bided his time as a spot-starter in Chicago, using brief splashes of play-time to show the type of menace he can be if granted a bigger role.
After starting eight games last season, Kwiatkoski hit the jackpot this offseason signing a three-year, $21 million deal with the Las Vegas Raiders to finally be a full-time starter.
"It's an opportunity that I feel like I've earned," Kwiatkoski said, via The Athletic. "I'm excited to see what I can do as the full-time guy. I've been through a lot of different changes, position changes and ups and downs in Chicago. So, to come in on Day 1 and be able to have a full season under my belt and show what I can do, I'm excited about it.
"I can't wait."
A fourth-round pick in 2016 out of West Virginia, Kwiatkoski played mostly a bit-role his first three seasons. But last year, with injuries striking Chicago's LB corps, the 27-year-old got to show off his ability.
In 2019, Kwiatkoski made eight starts, compiling 76 tackles, eight tackles for loss, three sacks, one forced fumble and one interception. The linebacker was all over the field when he entered as a starter, showing keen timing on blitzes, a willingness to smash his facemask in the hole against the run and good coverage skills against the pass.
Owning the ability to be a sideline-to-sideline tackler, cover in space, and rush the passer, Kwiatkoski is set to start in the middle of defensive coordinator Paul Guenther's base system, where he will be asked to lead the crew.

"That's the role that I played in Chicago," Kwiatkoski said. "I wore the green dot for the majority of the time that I was playing. I'm very comfortable with that and I'm looking forward to it. ... Being in the middle of the defense, it's what I'm used to.
"I'm excited to get out there and be a leader."
After four years in a backup role, Kwiatkoski earned the right to be a starter. Heading to a Raiders team desperate for difference-makers on defense, he finally has his chance to shine full-time

Former Bears 1st-round pick Kevin White tells NBC Sports he was ‘cheated’ by injuries 

White was the No. 7 overall pick in 2015 and was out of the NFL four years later. His biggest problem: He couldn’t stay healthy

Bears' Nagy to use starters in preseason, regrets 2019 benching
[img=64x0]https://res.cloudinary.com/stage-nflclubs/image/upload/49ers/f6b7udz3xm3jglfakq9q.svg[/img]
Adam Maya
NFL.COM DIGITAL CONTENT PRODUCER



Silver explains how Bears will split QB1 reps between Trubisky, Foles
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Matt Nagy has been running NFL offenses for the past four seasons. He coached them alongside bright minds Andy Reid and Doug Pederson for several years before that. But 2020 will be only Nagy's third as a head coach.
He opened each of his first two seasons by winning three of the first four games, losing the season opener to the Packers both times. It's how Chicago lost, and perhaps fared on offense in the ensuing weeks, that has Nagy determined to make a change for the coming season.
The 42-year-old coach reiterated, unlike last year, he'll play his starters in the preseason.
"As we talk, that's one of the things that I look back at from last year that I'm not happy about that I made a decision to do in the preseason," Nagy remarked on the Waddle & Silvy Show last Friday, per Bryan Perez of NBC Sports. "No. 1, I think it's good for them to have it, but No. 2 it sets the mentality. So that's not going to happen this year."

Schrager: Foles has 'a lot going in his favor' to be Bears' QB1
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While Nagy would know the inner-workings of his team best, the numbers back up his assertion. The Bears produced a mere three points in the 2019 opener, 16.5 points over the first four games and 17.5 for the season, their 29th-ranked scoring offense undermining their fourth-ranked scoring defense in an 8-8 campaign.
Just a year before, Chicago, with largely the same offensive nucleus, scored 23 points in Week 1, averaged 27.7 during the first month and 25.6 in the regular season to buttress the league's top scoring defense and go 12-4 while claiming the NFC North crown.

This preseason figures to be a pivotal time to examine the biggest question on the roster: Who's going to be the quarterback? The past two months have seen Chicago trade for Nick Foles and decline the fifth-year option of Mitchell Trubisky. The Bears' history suggests both will start in 2020, but Nagy will obviously be looking for one of them to separate himself and win the job.
Otherwise he'll be left with another tough decision that might alter the course of the entire season.

Chances are Nick Foles, Mitch Trubisky will each start for Bears
[img=64x0]https://res.cloudinary.com/stage-nflclubs/image/upload/49ers/f6b7udz3xm3jglfakq9q.svg[/img]
Grant Gordon
NFL.COM DIGITAL CONTENT PRODUCER



Matt Nagy: Mitchell Trubisky 'has been tested' by addition of Nick Foles
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When training camp takes over the NFL news cycle, the Bears' quarterback competition between Mitchell Trubisky and Nick Foles is likely to be one of the more prevalent battles and storylines in the gridiron universe.
As prognosticated depth charts have begun to take shape, many believe it's only a matter of time before Foles takes the starting reins from Trubisky. Beleaguered Bears fans are likely supportive of that.
However, a look into the Bears' tumultuous history with quarterbacks suggests Trubisky and Foles will each start for Chicago in 2020.
Twelve NFL teams had quarterbacks who started all 16 games last year. Not since 2009 has a Bears quarterback done that.
In their combined 11 seasons, Trubisky nor Foles has started a full season. Trubisky has started at least 12 games in each of his three seasons, however, while Foles has never started that many and has hit double digits just twice.
"I just look at it as something that Coach Nagy always tells us, 'Competition breeds success,'" Bears running back Tarik Cohen said Friday on ESPN's First Take. "You know we can't have two quarterbacks on the field at the same time, so it's going to be one person and somebody's going to be that guy.
"It's going to be interesting to see what happens."

Regardless of who emerges from the competition as QB1 heading into the season opener, history leans toward each quarterback starting at least a time or two.
It's just the way of the Bears it would seem.
During this century, only two quarterbacks – Rex Grossman (2006) and Jay Cutler (2009) – have started every game of a Chicago regular season. In that same 20 years, Grossman, Cutler and Trubisky are three of the whopping 23 quarterbacks who have started at least a game for the Bears.

Schrager: Foles has 'a lot going in his favor' to be Bears' QB1
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Maligned for much of his eight-season run in Chi-Town, Cutler is the franchise's all-time leading passer (23,443 yards) by a huge margin over No. 2 Sid Luckman (14,686). Luckman is the only Bears quarterback to have played the chief portion of his career with Chicago to be enshrined in the Hall of Fame. Cutler's 154 touchdown passes are tops in the franchise just as his 251 sacks are.
Considering all the criticism that has cluttered his career, Trubisky is likewise emblematic of the Bears' spotty history at the most important position.
Just three seasons in – two of them marked more by struggles than promise – Trubisky has 8,554 yards passing and 48 TD passes. Those are each eighth all-time in the 100-year history of the Chicago Bears. Yes, eighth. Yes, all-time. Trubisky. In three seasons.
Trubisky was a 2018 Pro Bowler. He was the first Bears quarterback to make the Pro Bowl since Jim McMahon in 1985.

Of course, the 1985 Bears still live on in the glorious lore of the Windy City and the NFL as they won the franchise's only Super Bowl.
Foles led the Philadelphia Eagles to their only Super Bowl title and has a statue to show for it, but is now on his second franchise removed from Philly despite his efforts.
Aside from a very impressive Pro Bowl campaign in 2013 during his first Philly stint, Foles has been mediocre in the regular season and every kind of stellar in the postseason.
Whether the Bears can even get back to the postseason quite obviously remains to be seen, just as who will quarterback them during the upcoming regular season is up for the taking.
With the way Trubisky and Foles' careers have played out along with the Bears' history at the position, chances are they will each find their way into the starting lineup.

Foles gold? Bears need quarterback to thrive, be bridge to 2022 season

If the Bears are right about Foles, they’re in a much better place at quarterback than most people think. He could be a budget-friendly bridge to the next franchise QB, who likely would be ready to start by 2022