More evidence that “Da Bears” simply aren’t that good at drafting a starting quarterback, even though we’re nearly to the 3rd decade of the 21st century A.D.
A summary of the article would be a nice conversation starter.
About how the Trubisky era needs to end
I think Teddy Bridgewater makes the most sense.
Yes, “Da Bears” is tired and needs to end. Along with the worship of the ‘85 team (as great as they were). The veneration of Mike Ditka—seriously, why are people still dressing like him at games? The guy was a fraud and a hack. Started to believe his own press. Only one Super Bowl with that team? That team should have had a Bulls like dynasty. And George Halas may have been a founder of the NFL but he also produced the current ownership group. For that he should be forced to listen to Lombardi talk about all his Super Bowl wins for eternity.
<reads linked article>
Oh, yes, Trubisky sucks.
One glaring problem is that the Bears didn’t/don’t seem to have a plan B. They’ve put most of their eggs in the Mitchell Trubisky basket, and didn’t really develop a plan for if he doesnt develop into a passable (heh, I amuse myself) NFL quarterback.
And now, they may not have the draft capital to get that plan B. Having shipped their 1st rounder to Oakland, and their 4th rounder to the Pats, they’d likely have to give up their 2 second rounders (or go even deeper into draft debt hell and trade 2021 picks) to get Bridgewayer or Mariota or whomever they’re eyeing.
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe Nagy and Pace are playing 3D chess and Tyler Bray is now ready to take his seat among good NFL quarterbacks. Or Chase Daniel can throttle down his mistakes and not cost the Bears games. But it seems to me that the Bears went all in on Trubisky and just got called.
As a Packers fan, I would hope the Mitch Trubisky era continues for another 10 years.
A lot of it falls on Trubisky (obviously, that’s what the article is about). He wasn’t spectacular all of last season but he did have flashes of brilliance: he had some nice deep throws, an unbelievable run for a TD against the Patriots, and he absolutely killed the Buccaneers (hey I know they’re not great but MT10 threw 6 TDs against them, that is remarkable, imo). This season he isn’t making the deep throws, the intermediates are too well covered, his passing is erratic, he isn’t running, and he isn’t reading the defense very well at all.
The other side of this is that it’s not all on Trubisky though. Nagy runs a dive up the middle with his 179 lb running back and when that doesn’t work, he totally forgets about the running game. Some of the crazy stuff that worked last year (throw a TD to a backup tackle!) isn’t working out (turn the backup tackle into a tight end!). Other teams have also sniffed out Nagy’s offense so when the basics aren’t working they get stuffed. The blocking has been terrible and injuries are reverting to the norm. The team also had a players-only meeting this past week which usually spells trouble for a team; I am optimistically hoping that they are looking for leadership to step up now that Kyle Long is out. Again, that’s my hope.
All that being said, the team is still behind Nagy and they like him as a coach. He gets their respect and he has also cultivated a good attitude in the locker room. This is not John Fox’s or (ohmygod don’t make me say it) Marc Trestman’s team here. All that respect and good cheer won’t go far if they can’t win though.
Despite all that, I’ll be surprised to see if the Bears actually make a move for another QB. I think Trubisky is their guy and they’re going to ride it out with him this season.
Did Trrstman not do well with the Bears? He had a good record as a head coach in the CFL.
Fairly poorly, in fact. 13-19 in two seasons as the Bears coach (8-8 in 2013, 5-11 in 2014). His offense did well in '13, but his defenses were near the bottom of the league, and they ended '14 with five straight losses.
I think, that, in part, he wasn’t a good fit for the smash-mouth, defense-oriented style that has usually been a hallmark of successful Bears teams, and is what the fans here seem to like best.
As I sifted through my memories of that era some more, I’m not convinced that the Bears’ lousy defenses under Trestman were entirely Trestman’s fault.
Under his predecessor, Lovie Smith, the Bears’ defenses were almost always good-to-excellent; they had a number of perennial Pro Bowlers on that side of the ball, including Brian Urlacher, Lance Briggs, and Charles Tillman. But, because the struggle that Lovie’s teams always had was on offense, it seemed like they kept focusing their drafts on offense, and kept missing with those draft picks (e.g., Rex Grossman, Cedric Benson, Gabe Carimi).
By the time Trestman took over, the Bears’ defense had gotten old. Urlacher retired prior to the 2013 season, while Briggs and Tillman were both well into their 30s, and both of them suffered significant injuries.
More on the Trestman era (ugh). Trestman couldn’t control the locker room. He was good enough as an offensive guy and had the Xs and Os down but he couldn’t lead the team and he couldn’t motivate or control players like Brandon Marshall, Martellus Bennet, and Lance Briggs – who never acted out or anything but had essentially checked out by that time. There was even an event where offensive coordinator Aaron Kromer complained to an NFL writer that working with Jay Cutler was tough and when word of that got out, he had a come to Jesus moment in the locker room where he admitted as much (check out 2014 season in the link below).
Chicago Bears writer Larry Mayer, whose job is essentially to talk up the Bears wherever possible is very upfront about the dysfunction during the Trestman years. See the link below the link below for that.
A LOT of teams have this same problem. Maybe it’s the Bears, and I’m sure some of it is, but there’s also the fact that there just aren’t 32 NFL star-caliber QBs in the world at any given time. Normally there’s only like 5, and everyone else has to make do with whatever they can get.
Maybe, but New Orleans would be stupid to let him go considering Brees is 57.
What should have been the 2nd to last play of the game never happened because the coach lacked confidence in the Bears’ offense. 1st and 10, 40 seconds to go. At least move the ball a little to make the field goal easier. They sit on it instead and run down the clock. That was telling.
Well, it didn’t help that he kept punting on 3rd down. 
Seriously, though, as has been noted earlier, he presided over one of the worst (if not the absolute worst) defensive Chicago Bears teams ever. And Bears while fans don’t like losing, they will absolutely riot over having an historically bad defense.
Yeah, at the time I thought that was a little conservative, especially for Nagy. But still, that’s a very makeable kick and it was a gut punch to see it sail wide.
This team is going nowhere this year. And for me the worst part of the Trubisky era (error?) is that they actually traded away two third round and one fourth round picks to move up in the draft to get him when they clearly could have had him one pick later. And if by some chance he wasn’t taken at that point, gee, there were a couple of other pretty good QB options still on the board.
The idea was that someone else was going to trade with the 49ers to get him. No one knows if that’s true, and no GM is going to admit that now.
I still like Pace as a GM, but his bigger problem is that he gets a little too focused on “his guy,” and will do anything for him. He needs to learn to settle for other options.
Of course, hindsight is 20/20. Let’s not forget that a lot, if not a majority were ranking Trubisky above Mahomes and Watson prior to the draft. And KC and Houston also gave up first rounds picks for their QB.
Yeah, that’s not hindsight, at least for me. When they made that trade to move up one spot I was nearly apoplectic. I thought at the time that Mahomes and Watson were pick 'em for the best available QB’s in the draft, and that Trubisky had some potential but only one season as a starter didn’t give us a lot to go on. If they’d made that trade to get Mahomes or Watson I still probably wouldn’t have liked it, but at least they had a little more of a college track record. If they stayed at #3 overall and still took Trubisky I wouldn’t have liked it.
In fairness to Trubisky, I will say that if the Bears had picked one of the other two guys that there’s no guarantee that they would have turned into what they are right now, especially with their rookie season under John Fox. But it’s hard to imagine that they still wouldn’t be better than Trubisky turned out.
But I do like some of the moves that Pace has made, and he’s mostly drafted pretty well aside from that trade & pick. I loved the trade (expensive as it was) to get Mack. But this team hasn’t had a top notch QB in my lifetime (and I’m 56). It’s a sad state of affairs when the best QB you’ve seen play for your team in your lifetime is Jay Fucking Cutler or Jim McMahon. And it shows no signs of getting better.
It sends a terrible message to an offense already lacking in confidence. If they had moved just 10 yards closer, that field goal would have been good because it hooked at the last moment.
I don’t like Nagy. I don’t like the way he calls plays, and I don’t like the fear he shows in key situations.