The Bears really didn’t build cases against Deshaun Watson or Patrick Mahomes in April 2017. They simply became so infatuated with Mitch Trubisky that they didn’t risk the chance that the 49ers — or someone else — would snag him with the second pick in the draft.
That “strong belief” in Trubisky, as one source behind the scenes recalled it, prompted general manager Ryan Pace
to package two third-round picks and a fourth to move up from the No. 3 pick and ensure the franchise got its man.
Never has the trade nor Trubisky looked
Coach Matt Nagy said Monday that Trubisky needed to improve his footwork, and the Bears went to work on that when they returned to practice Wednesday at Halas Hall in preparation for Sunday’s meeting with the Chargers.
Questions about Trubisky’s future are narrowing. Forget 2020. Can he remain the starter through November if a team with a playoff-ready defense doesn’t
right itself? Nagy can’t entertain what-if questions, but he knows better than anyone the 3-3 Bears are at a point where they must get going.
Trubisky has been eviscerated on social
Former All-Pro punter Pat McAfee put out a poll for his online show asking, “Who has had a better career at their position? Cody Parkey or Mitchell Trubisky?” With more than 15,000 responses in an hour,
the kicker won in a landslide with 66% of the vote.
While Trubisky may be a punchline
It can no longer be debated if he’s regressing in Year 2 in Nagy’s system. Loads of statistics available are only depressing. He’s near the bottom in practically every metric imaginable. Basic plays have turned into disasters, including the second-quarter run-pass option against the Saints when he was sacked by defensive end Cam Jordan with an open receiver to each side.
There’s no explanation for throwing the ball away on a fourth-and-3 in the fourth quarter other than Trubisky’s feet were a hot mess.
“Try to simulate the pocket as much as you can,” Trubisky said. “Practice and obviously the game reps are the best, and being out for a couple weeks I think definitely showed I wasn’t as comfortable as I usually am, and a couple of times I did the wrong drop. Sometimes there is happy feet.”
The Bears have had to limit the game plan for Trubisky. Generally, he’s asked to read only half the field because the coaches want the ball out of his hands quickly on curls, slants and shallow crosses. When he does take a shot downfield, it’s often inaccurate. His pocket movement is poor and he has become scared of pressure. He struggles to step up and deliver the ball.
If he can straighten out his footwork, perhaps Trubisky can find some success against the Chargers, who rank 28th in opponents passer rating at 108.5 and are 29th in average yards per attempt at 8.7 — 3.5 yards above Trubisky’s mark for
the season.
Nagy has thrown his full support
behind Trubisky. Read between the lines of what he’s saying and it’s very clear — my quarterback needs to be better. There’s no easy fix for a 25-year-old preparing to make his 32nd career regular-season start.
The Bears have to stick with what they’ve built, find some core principles Trubisky is comfortable with against the Chargers and then execute, something
that has been hard for all 11 players to do at the same time this season. How else do you explain their inability to reach 300 yards of offense in six consecutive games?
That happened only five times all of last season.
Whether or not they can pull out of the tailspin remains to be seen. There is plenty of football, 10 games, remaining, but it’s not as if there weren’t abundant warning signs in the first month of the season that the offense was out of sorts. The Bears can’t throw the ball downfield. They’ve either struggled to run or given up trying because they’re so ineffective, something that has made the bad passing game easier to defend. As Vic Fangio infamously said, “We’ve got to get our so-called ‘good players’ playing even better.” Fangio, of course, was talking about the defensive players, but it applies to the so-called weapons on offense.
Nagy understands there is a balance to coaching Trubisky while also trying to rebuild his confidence.
“The yelling and the screaming with a quarterback usually doesn’t work,” he said. “You have to pick and choose when those occur. If that happens all the time, you become numb to it and you play tight
and all that. So there’s a little fragileness to that. But it’s always showing that you have confidence, not just in your quarterback, but we’re talking about that — showing that you have confidence and ultimate trust regardless of what goes down.”
Where is Trubisky with his confidence?
“Well, his confidence isn’t at an all-time high,” Nagy said. “We’re struggling right now. But how do you get that back? You
get it back by practicing hard, by actually getting tighter. We need to get tighter and understand, and I think that’s the message that we’ve had: get tighter, believe in one another, keep trusting, right?”
Trubisky wasn’t loose in answering questions Wednesday as he has been in better times. His words tended to run into one another as he spoke faster than usual, surely preferring to be elsewhere.
You can’t blame him. He’s in the crosshairs and knows it. It doesn’t matter what he says or how he delivers it. All that matters is improving what has been an unacceptable level of play.
“Nothing in the past determines
the future, nothing you did yesterday determines what you do tomorrow,” he said. “The only thing that determines
that is the attitude, effort and how you
do your job that day, so we’ve got a great opportunity this week. I’m looking forward to it and I think it’s going to start to turn.”
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