AP source: Jaguars agree to trade QB Nick Foles to Bears
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) — A person familiar with the trade says the Jacksonville Jaguars have agreed to send quarterback Nick Foles to the Chicago Bears for a compensatory fourth-round draft pick.
The person spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because trades don’t become official until the league year begins later Wednesday.
The Jaguars are dumping Foles a little more than a year after giving the 2018 Super Bowl MVP a four-year, $88 million contract that included a whopping $50.125 million guaranteed.
Foles is due to make $15.125 million in 2020 and would have counted $21.837 million against Jacksonville’s salary cap. Dealing him will still be costly for the Jaguars — they will take on $18.75 million in dead money this fall — but it will free up about $35 million over the next two years. Jacksonville saves a little more than $3 million in 2020 by trading him.
General manager Dave Caldwell and coach Doug Marrone are beginning a full rebuild after the team’s 10th losing season in the last 12 years. Last March, they raved about Foles and what it meant to finally have a franchise quarterback after a decades-long search that saw Jacksonville try Byron Leftwich, David Garrard, Blaine Gabbert, Chad Henne and Blake Bortles.
But the 30-year-old Foles ended up being a bust in Jacksonville. He broke his left collarbone early in the season opener, missed the next eight games and then got benched in his third game back.
Rookie Gardner Minshew, a sixth-round draft pick from Washington State, played well enough in Foles’ absence to make Caldwell and Marrone believe he’s got more upside as a starter moving forward. It also made Foles expendable.
