For Bears to develop young players, Matt Barkley must be passable

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Matt Barkley will start Sunday if Jay Cutler can’t. (Getty Images)

The rest of the Bears’ season doesn’t hinge on wins and losses but, rather, finding out which players going to be on the next decent team.

Before they can evaluate their other 10 offensive players, though, the Bears need to learn Matt Barkley. If the Bears’ fourth quarterback — behind, offensive coordinator Dowell Loggains argued Thursday, injured preseason sensation Connor Shaw — can’t be passable Sunday, it won’t matter what the other 10 do.

“The challenge comes in really finding out what the quarterback does well, and then making sure that it fits in with those other 10 guys,” Loggains said Thursday. “That’s the biggest thing.

“We’re not looking to the future; we looking at this week and putting our guys in the best situation, best plays we can, to win this game. That’s really the biggest challenge.”

The Bears crept one day closer to Barkley’s first start since the 2012 UCLA-USC rivalry game Thursday, when Jay Cutler again missed practice with an injured right shoulder.

Even though coach John Fox said Thursday’s absence didn’t decrease Cutler’s odds of playing Sunday, it is unlikely he takes the field against the Titans.

In preparing to start, Barkley has done things in practice this week for the first time.

“Practice has been a challenge that way, to see what he’s comfortable with and really try to find out what he does well,” Loggains said. “And how we can put him in a situation to succeed.”

That’s an upgrade over his last round of preparation, when Barkley took the field against the Packers having not practiced with the Bears’ starters. He went 6-for-15 for 81 yards. After kicking a field goal on his first possession, the Bears’ Barkley-led offense totaled 68 yards on 18 plays, including two passes for 37 yards in a final garbage-time drive.

And while Loggains said Barkley showed good poise, his four second-half possessions ended with two punts and two interceptions.

The Bears are simplifying their playbook — “You streamline things,” Loggains said — because, in part, Barkley doesn’t have the base knowledge of his passing predecessors. He didn’t participate in training camp or preseason with the Bears.

In that sense, Barkley is behind even David Fales, who the Bears cut on the final day of the preseason and signed off the Ravens’ practice squad Wednesday.

“You can’t just run the play one time and say, ‘Hey, if it’s this coverage, we know that Jay, Brian, Connor, David—they understand what we’re doing,’” Loggains said. “They need to get the reps of multiple coverages, multiple looks. That’s the biggest challenge. That’s why you have to streamline it.

“And you’re playing young players around him.”

That’s the complicating factor — both for Barkley and the players around him.

How will the Bears be able to evaluate rookie running back Jordan Howard if the Titans put eight men in the box, daring Barkley to throw? How will the team gauge tight end Ben Braunecker and receiver Cam Meredith’s performance unless Barkley gets them the ball when he’s coached to?

“When you have a team that has this many injuries, everything’s difficult,” Braunecker said. “But we’re all NFL players. We have three capable guys in the tight end room right now, so we’re all really looking forward to getting a little bit more work and showing what we can do.”

Meredith looked on the bright side.

“I think, if anything, it helps you,” he said. “Because it shows when adversity comes that, if you’re able to handle adversity like a pro, then regardless of the situation, you’ll be successful.”

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