Bears need their quarterback to become First-Quarter Foles

Ask Bears coach Matt Nagy what it will take for quarterback Nick Foles to take the next step Monday against the Rams, and he starts at the beginning.

‘‘For Nick, it’s probably me as a play-caller, him as a quarterback [and] us as an offense being able to get off to a fast start,’’ he said. ‘‘And keep that fast start.’’

It would be a first for Foles in a Bears uniform.

In the first quarter of his three starts this season, Foles is 15-for-23 for 117 yards, with one touchdown, one interception and a 74.0 passer rating. The Bears have averaged 4.2 yards per play and have been outscored 20-7.

And about that one touchdown: It came after the Bears inherited the ball at the Panthers’ 7 following an interception by safety Tashaun Gipson last week. Foles threw a nine-yard touchdown pass to tight end Cole Kmet on third down, but not before the Bears burned a timeout and took a delay-of-game penalty.

Throw out that drive, and Foles’ longest first-quarter possession made it to the Buccaneers’ 36. He then promptly threw an interception.

‘‘It seems like the offense, we always start slow and the defense is always helping us out,’’ running back Cordarrelle Patterson said. ‘‘It’s time. It’s time for us to help those guys out and just get out and get going, just starting fast and finishing fast and not trying to wait until the third or fourth quarter to put points on the board.’’

Since being named the starter exactly four weeks ago, Foles has repeated that practice, not games, is where the Bears can find their offensive mojo.

‘‘There’s no magic potion to this,’’ he said. ‘‘It’s just continuing to have these conversations, implementing little changes that will help us. And then, ultimately, going out there and executing.’’

Doing so — quickly — will allow the 5-1 Bears to play to their strengths: their high-octane pass rush and their increasingly opportunistic defense. The Bears totaled five takeaways in their first five games, then had three in Week 6.

‘‘If you’re getting a fast start, you’re usually moving the chains and keeping our defense off the field for a rest,’’ Nagy said. ‘‘But then if you get the lead and score points, now the [opponent] becomes a little bit more one- dimensional . . . and that’s where we can become more opportunistic.

‘‘We want to live in that world a little bit more.’’

The Bears tried to do that in the first quarter against the Rams last season in Los Angeles — and failed spectacularly.

Eddy Pineiro missed a 48-yard field goal to end the first drive of the ‘‘Sunday Night Football’’ game, but the Bears got the ball back when safety Eddie Jackson forced then-Rams running back Todd Gurley to fumble on the next play.

Spooked by his kicker, Nagy then decided to go for it on fourth-and-nine rather than try a 49-yard field goal. Mitch Trubisky threw an incomplete pass.

Six plays later, linebacker Roquan Smith picked off Rams quarterback Jared Goff. That drive ended with Pineiro missing a 47-yard field goal.

The Bears held the ball for 11 minutes, ran 28 plays and were tied at zero at the end of the first quarter. They trailed 10-0 at halftime. By the end of the game, Chase Daniel was under center because the Bears said Trubisky was hurt. The nation, though, saw the Bears’ quarterback debacle for what it was.

Foles can change that narrative, even though he has spent the last week railing against the need for style points. He rather would win ugly than lose pretty.

‘‘Two of the games we won — one I didn’t play in, but one I did — we had, like, a 99-point-something [percent] chance of losing that game at one point in the fourth quarter,’’ Foles said. ‘‘That doesn’t happen where you come back from that ever. Like, twice?’’

With a fast start, however, the Bears wouldn’t have to worry about performing another fourth-quarter miracle.