Chicago assistant coach says Bears have ‘best quarterback room’ in NFL

If you ask the Chicago Bears, they have the best quarterback room in the NFL.

Forget Patrick Mahomes. For that matter, you can step around Lamar Jackson and ignore Russ Wilson, too. While you’re at it, just cast aside Tom Brady, Deshaun Watson, Aaron Rodgers or Drew Brees. When it comes to quarterback rooms, no team has it better than the Chicago Bears.

This is the dream sequence uttered out loud by Chicago Bears quarterbacks coach John DeFilippo to the Chicago Tribune in a recent interview. To be specific, DeFilippo decided to go on record and say the Chicago Bears have “the best quarterback room” in the NFL.

In the lead up to the quote, DeFilippo was asked about the competition at quarterback between former top draft pick Mitchell Trubisky and the newly imported Nick Foles. He was defining the word “juice” he’s looking for at the position when he gave the quote:

"“It means we have a passion for the game. We have a ton of energy,” DeFilippo said. “We’re the same people every day. But then we walk around with a little bit of swagger to ourselves in terms of knowing we’re the best quarterback room in the National Football League. And that doesn’t mean we go around and are cocky and arrogant. That just means we have a swagger about ourselves that the only (way we can be) beat is if we beat ourselves.”"

Note the following: the Bears have the best quarterback room and the only way to beat the Bears is if they are responsible for it. I guess that means when the Bears lost for the eighth time last season against the Kansas City Chiefs in a late-season 26-3 loss—at Soldier Field, by the way—we all forgot that it was because the Bears shot themselves in the foot over and over. We appreciate DeFilippo providing the reminder.

It’s always interesting to hear comments like this because you want a coach to believe in his players, and DeFilippo going on record about having the best quarterback room falls in the category of “supportive” to be sure. It could also be “satire.” The Bears have been a total mess at the position for as long as anyone can remember—the best they’ve done since the ’85 Super Bowl win is Jay Cutler—and it’s doubtful that Foles vs. Trubisky is going to solve their woes in 2020.

It’s the offseason which means we’re paying way too much attention to quotes from an opposing team’s assistant coach. Maybe we just need to say “thanks for the laugh, coach” and move on from there. The Bears can believe what they want at this stage. It’s just amazing they can muster anything close to “swagger” at all.