NFL Week 3 grades: Bears get an 'A+' for benching Trubisky in win, Eagles an 'F' for tie with Bengals

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It’s not often that a starting quarterback gets benched after leading his team to a 2-0 start, but that’s exactly what happened to Mitchell Trubisky on Sunday. After two-and-a-half quarters of watching his team play disastrous offensive football, Bears coach Matt Nagy decided to pull the plug on Trubisky in favor of Nick Foles. And like pretty much every story that involves Nick Foles coming off the bench, this one worked out well as Foles led the Bears to a shocking 30-26 win in Atlanta.

With the Bears trailing 26-10 in the third quarter, Nagy finally decided to bench Trubisky after watching his quarterback throw an interception on Chicago’s first possession of the second half. By bringing in Foles, Nagy was clearly just hoping to spark his offense, and that’s exactly what happened. After working through some rust in the third quarter, Foles caught fire in the fourth quarter, leading the Bears on three touchdown drives. On those three drives, Foles went a combined 9 of 12 for 119 yards and three touchdowns.

Foles would have had a fourth touchdown, but a play that was originally ruled a simultaneous possession score for the Bears was overturned after review and ruled an interception. A possible fifth touchdown on a different drive also almost happened, but an Anthony Miller TD was ruled incomplete after a review.

Once Foles went into the game, the Bears looked like they had a different offense. Foles loves to push the ball downfield, and most of the time his deep gambles pay off, like when he hit Anthony Miller for a 28-yard score that ended up being the game-winning touchdown with 1:53 left to play.

Despite just playing a quarter and a half, Foles still finished with more passing yardage than Trubisky (188 to 128). We don’t have a large sample size yet, but it seemed pretty clear on Sunday that the Bears offense works better with Foles. The Bears have a lot of weapons, and Trubisky just didn’t do a good job of utilizing them while he was on the field.

With Foles leading the Bears to the comeback win, it’s likely that we’ve seen the last of Trubisky as Chicago’s starter. With his contract set to expire following the season, it’s hard to imagine Nagy going back to Trubisky unless Foles gets hurt.

The good news for the Bears is that they were able to start 2-0 despite Trubisky, and because of that, Nagy won’t have to regret the fact that he started the season with him at quarterback. At 3-0, the Bears are all of a sudden a force to be reckoned with in the NFC North.

Alright, let’s get to the grades for every game from Week 3. If you’re looking for a deeper dive on the Dolphins-Jaguars game that was played on Thursday, be sure to click here.