The Chicago Bears sales pitch since the end of the draft hasn’t changed. Their plan is clear moving forward. Mike Glennon is the man right now. He will be the starter in 2017. The Mitch Trubisky starter enthusiasts will have to wait a year. The team wants their prized top draft pick to learn the offense from the safety of the sideline and be prepared to assume control down the line. He is the future, not the present.
Except there seems to be a growing movement that believe this black and white reality is a tiny bit hogwash. The arguments against sidelining Trubisky are more plentiful than people think. For one the sooner he gets on the field, the quicker he gains experience and the quicker he gets better. He’s also the most versatile player on the depth chart with running ability that Glennon does not possess.
However, there is another reason that a notable Bears insider referenced recently in an interview. Trubisky is simply improving at such a rapid rate in practice that it’s becoming hard to justify benching him.
Mitch Trubisky starter calls could grow deafening soon
John “Moon” Mullin of CSN Chicago is one of the longest-tenured Bears beat writers going in town. He’s had his finger on the teams’ pulse for a long time. So it’s never a bad thing to listen when he has something to say. That’s why it was a bit of a shock when he dropped this miniature bomb during an interview with Pro Football Talk on NBC.
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“It would not stun me to have this kid really flash in preseason and win the job outright,” Mullin said of Trubisky. “I don’t think it’s going to happen but it wouldn’t stun me. You see them alongside each other, you see them trading off the reps and so forth. Trubisky’s got the ‘it’ factor. I’ve seen a lot of quarterbacks and this kid’s got something to him. You don’t see that with Glennon. This kid, when he’s on the field, kind of lights it up a little bit.”
Note the phrasing of this carefully. Mullin said he doesn’t think it will happen, but more than implied he believes it should. In other words that’s a clear indication he doesn’t trust Bears head coach John Fox to make that bold decision. Fox is somewhat notorious for being conservative. He doesn’t like playing rookies if he has an excuse not to. Some feel the Glennon signing was the teams’ way of placation, giving him an experienced free agent QB to play with while the front office drafted the future in Trubisky.
Indeed the rookie has had his hiccups thus far. His issues with taking a snap under center manifested with multiple botches during the first camp practices. There hasn’t been a single mention of them since. He’s also, according to public knowledge, only thrown one interception. Granted that’s against mostly second and third string defenders but still. Rookies aren’t supposed to be learning as fast as he has.
Who is that man! Trubisky to #TitusDavis #BearDown! pic.twitter.com/DOrIcaqKpu
— Gridiron Assassin (@GridAssassin) July 29, 2017
Message is pretty clear: Leave the door open
In essence the plea from fans and some experts isn’t hard to discern. All they want is for the Bears brass to give Mitch a legitimate chance. Don’t hold him down. If he shows in the preseason that he’s clearly the better quarterback, why stick to the plan? Yes Glennon came in expecting to start but this is the NFL, man. No jobs are guaranteed. If you want it, prove you deserve it.
Sure from a competitive standpoint one would feel for the guy. He’d hoped to finally get his chance to play by signing with Chicago, only to have the rug pulled out from under him. At the same time the Bears just gave him $18.5 million in guaranteed money. They’ve set his financial future up handsomely. They have a job to do at the end of the day and that’s put the best 11 players on the field.
If Trubisky shows he is that guy, then there is no valid excuse to keep him off it.
