Why Mitch Trubisky Failed with the Chicago Bears- A Retrospective

hello there and a special welcome to the disenchanted bears fans in my audience i have a special place in my heart for you tortured souls that sit on your couch every sunday and watch the chicago bears play football i know that can't be easy for you for a franchise to have such a storied past and storyless present is just depressing and while i've poked at the bears for my own amusement in the past today i just can't muster up the desire to be mean-spirited because the truth is i'm not mad i'm disappointed disappointed in the organization at hallis hall and disappointed in mitchell trubisky so to unwind the mess of the last four seasons let's grab our brushes and try to paint a picture of where the bears went wrong again but in order to make sure we aren't bringing any stress with us into our look back at the trubisky era i'd like to recommend the sponsor of today's video over at purple for just that look i know it's hard to sleep when you're pleading with the universe for a franchise 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and now let's bear down and get into it okay so the bears have not historically had the best luck with quarterbacks over the years now i specifically said i wasn't going to be mean so here's just an objective list of every passer for the bears that has had at least 4 000 yards in a season yeah the number zero they're the only team in the nfl to have never had a qb check that box despite being a founding member of the national football league over a hundred years ago so as you can imagine when general manager ryan pace was hired in 2015 it was no surprise that the position needed a closer look the first moves on the surface were extremely bizarre as following jay cutler's departure pace signed mike glennon to a three-year 45 million dollar contract but underneath initial votes of confidence in the career backup pace had shifted his attention to the 2017 draft where the bears held the number three pick and pace had near complete control of who that would be the classes top three quarterbacks were clemson's desean watson texas tech's patrick mahomes and north carolina's mitchell trubisky but rapidly trubisky seemed to pull away from the pack and pace his mind i mean it was so clear the bears never even had dinner with desean watson instead pace fell head over heels for trubisky's apparent accuracy his poise in the pocket his candidness and soon enough there was only one quarterback at the top of chicago's board looking back of course it's easy to laugh at that evaluation but none of the top three prospects were viewed as a home run selection trubisky was considered the most talented pocket passer but it only started 13 games at unc and was 8 and 5 in them mahomes was a creative gunslinger but plenty worried about how much of that wouldn't translate over to the nfl and watson had made electric plays on the nation's biggest stages but still had concerns regarding his durability and 30 interceptions as a starter obviously now at the time this video is coming out there's also a situation that complicates things further in retrospect but of course nothing related to that was known at the time the overall point though is that this was a class where you had to call your shot and pace who was a scout for the saints when they got drew brees was confident he had a similar talent in mitch trubisky so confident in fact they would unload two third rounders and a fourth rounder to move up just one spot to number two ensuring trubisky would not suit up anywhere but for chicago but despite the champagne bottles that were being popped for an organization ready to throw their full weight behind this kid out of north carolina there sure was a weird lack of consensus on where the franchise was headed head coach john fox was not told the bears were taking a quarterback until just hours before the draft mike glennon who was promised the wheel by pace a month earlier just watched the bears draft his replacement and the understandably weary bears fanbase many of whom were expecting a piece for the defense like jamal adams were split on the move surrounding trubisky's arrival just to say the least so despite pace's confidence in having secured the savior of the franchise instability between management and coaching created a clear divide in the approach to trubisky and his development while pace may have liked for his young quarterback to learn for a year on the bench fox was spurred by the horrible play of mike glennon to start him in just week five his play as a rookie was pedestrian but hey at least the wheels didn't fall off entirely sure he had a game where he completed four of seven passing but the bears won that game so 2017 set the stage for the bears to look competitive for once but it wasn't until 2018 that trubisky's expectations would catapult into the stratosphere it all began with the hiring of matt nagy a disciple of the andy reed coaching tree who looked poised to bring new life to the stagnant pond that had always been the bear's offense and still fully bought in ryan pace was ready to push all of his chips in on the quarterback he had hand selected alan robinson would give mitch an elite weapon on the outside trey burton was a versatile tight end taylor gabriel provided much needed deep speed all those pass catchers were signed the following off-season but that wasn't even the end of it it was becoming more clear every season that budding superstar quarterbacks on their rookie deal were the single most valuable ace you can have up your sleeve and pace believed that he had one so he bolstered a loaded defense to set the team's ambitions on winning a super bowl now at the start of 2018 trubisky began slow and was by no means perfect but his oscillations between high and low seemed to level out as he became more familiar with nike's system certainly aided by the best defense in the nfl always having his back not to mention he also occasionally gave bears fans something they hadn't felt in forever in the form of genuine bliss watching trubisky torch the buccaneers for five touchdowns in the first half felt like he had arrived as the future of the bears and though he'd be outshined by some dude obsessed with ketchup later in the season if nagi's system was this electric with trick plays and aggressive calls at the forefront then the best had to be yet to come right of course 2018 didn't quite end how chicago hoped it would and since we're creating an environment of love today we're just not gonna go there but once the pain subsided heartbreak gave way to hope again naggy and pace won coach and executive of the year and with their return the bears had every reason to believe the team was ready to make a run just in time for their hundredth season the defense returned most pieces and the offense would unravel new folds with trubisky nagi 202 as it was dubbed fixated on a touchdown to check down progression it involved hitting the big play when it was there nagi was ready to unleash his own mahomes onto the nfl the hype was magnificent and absolutely none of it translated with the nation watching on opening night against the packers trubisky looked wholly incompetent he missed throws bungled excellent field position and tossed a game-ceiling interception to former bear adrian amos in the back corner of the end zone cementing a 10-3 loss it was demoralizing but one game doesn't end a season hell they won their next three despite trubisky sustaining an injury along the way but coming out of their bye week the cracks didn't close in fact they got wider against a saints team missing drew brees and alvin kamara trubisky made bears fans wish that they were starting a backup failing to pick up a first down on five of seven first-half possessions and losing 36-20 in a game that was far less close than the score indicates the following week against a battered chargers team trubisky again failed to make the plays he needed to giving the ball away twice in the fourth quarter of a game the bears would lose 17-16 on a missed field goal as the year progressed and the bears spiraled to 8-8 the media machine that had been given championship expectations wanted answers for who was to blame on the one hand trubisky was not the only thing wrong with the bear's offense with nagy receiving plenty of criticism for not adapting to the struggles of his team and instead remaining stubbornly dedicated to his kansas city style offense but while it's easy to criticize a coach for not putting his players in the right positions what about when they just straight up do not execute the bear's offensive line declined from their play in 2018 which did few favors in protection into the running game but more than anything nagi's third year quarterback did not rise to the occasion for a quarterback to ascend from a player that doesn't lose games to a player that can win them on his own the minor flaws they enter the league with have to gradually evaporate but for trubisky they worsened sure nagi could have run his quarterback more or called more play action but mitch had problems that weren't able to simply be remedied by play calls not trusting a clean pocket and constantly playing with jittery footwork staring his targets down and allowing defenders to get the jump as a result constant inaccuracy issues sailing the ball over receivers that stem from his release and just an overall inability to process coverages rapidly that he himself would admit to the problem is combined all these struggles that seem bizarre on the surface belie a lack of confidence and ability to read and execute at an nfl level yeah some of these things could be helped by nagi or should have been ironed out by qb coach dave ragon but three seasons into a guy's career if he's as inconsistent and apprehensive as he was in his rookie season then something is wrong nagi and trubisky's relationship soured throughout the course of 2019 for obvious reasons and things rapidly devolved into a chicken egg debate on who was causing the other to look incompetent at their job up above now forced to face the reality his can't miss prospect might just be a bust ryan pace opted to bring in competition in 2020 trading a fourth-round pick for jaguar's quarterback nick foles trubisky emerged from a coved-capped offseason competition as the starter but despite going 2-0 through three weeks his continued inconsistency and errant plays would get him benched for foals halfway through the next game and he would spend the next seven weeks watching from the sideline nick foles proved to be similarly unable to carry the offense and trubisky would return as a starter following the team's buy to go on a three-game streak of beating down horrible defenses with reinvigorated play calling from bill laser all of a sudden questions were being asked about whether trubisky was salvageable but he would very soon return to earth with the bears barely squeaking into the playoffs at 8-8 because of the expansion to the play-off field for trubisky's last dance they traveled to new orleans for the wild card round and the game aired on nickelodeon despite probably being an fcc violation to show bears football two kids that young it was actually pretty entertaining but mitch trubisky was not chicago only totaled 140 yards and a single field goal to show for the entire game that is until at least this is my theory mitch heard that he was pulling ahead in voting for the first ever nvp award and decided to give the crowd a 99 yard touchdown drive to show his appreciation and look i don't think i'm breaking my own rules about trying to be nice here because i think any bears fan will agree that this was the single best thing to happen in the 2020 season there it is we got the trophy right here mr mitch strabiewski is the winner but that was the end of it the mitchell trubisky era would end not in confetti but in slime the bears didn't attempt to resign trubisky in the coming months and he quietly inked a deal with buffalo to back up a player many feel is on the trajectory he was supposed to be on in josh allen now chicago fans are being forced to settle for another placeholder quarterback in andy dalton renewing the cycle of purgatory for at least another season as the bears now have to deal with the cap implications of having gone all in on trubisky but as friends here to try and learn from this tragedy what takeaways are actually valuable well there's clearly no way to look at trubisky's career without seeing the success of the peers drafted after him first and people use that to defend mitch in a way which i can sort of kind of understand it isn't mitch's fault that ryan pace was so in love with him that he traded up and made a ton of noise about how he'd gotten the perfect quarterback even though the red flags were present all the way from the start trubisky was a draft and developed prospect but with quarterbacks going as high as they do like many he did not get that luxury with john fox's lame duck coaching staff left in the dark through the process they also didn't have a vested interest in developing him nearly as much as they did in just saving their own skin so maybe there's a lesson there on sort of kind of having a unified vision of where things are going and i don't think i need to remind you of what that might look like a huge media market like chicago is always going to favor immediate calls for change to practicing patience but trubisky never indicated anything other than that he was a hard-working self-motivated team leader who said all the right things and approached being a pro the right way that's not to say the noise didn't affect him but it certainly isn't why he failed to live up to his pedigree no matter what excuses you want to make in regards to his development the play calling scheme fit etc the cold truth is that trubisky just doesn't have the tools to be an elite quarterback and no amount of revisionist history changes that fact for being the prospect touted as a pinpoint accurate reader of coverages he is neither of those things four years into his career every single season so far you've seen the same problems not be resolved from mechanical inaccuracy to decision making to confidence in the pocket wrong decisions and bad execution are just part of who trubisky is he's able to be the reason the game is won sometimes but most often the game has to be won in spite of him mitch has the volatility of jameis winston with none of the fun his floor is higher but his ceilings are much lower the difference is the bears have been good enough to carry him when he collapses and ultimately that's the toughest thing to swallow ryan pace made the correct bet in trying to capitalize on a rookie deal and load the roster with help but point blank he went all in on the wrong guy the bears ranked first and tenth in defensive dvoa in 2018 and 19 while their offenses ranked 20th and 25th 2020 reaffirmed that as well their defense ranked eighth in spite of their own struggles but you just cannot win like this in the modern nfl i'm sorry and i know that 1985 is all that matters but defense by itself cannot carry you to a championship anymore no matter if that is chicago football or not okay look mitchell trubisky is a bust no one is denying that and it sucks but he went 29 and 21 as a starter with two playoff appearances so it could have been much much worse and for that reason trubisky's story isn't over yet but neither is yours chicago because at the end of the day you've got to remember one thing there are no mistakes just happy little [Music] [Music] accidents [Music]

Channel: Set the Edge

Views: 476,588

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Id: VlbmdOJYdOQ

Length: 16min 31sec (991 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 01 2021