It’s been long established that ESPN is far from the sports dynamo it used to be. Just look at the massed exodus of exception writing talent they’ve allowed to get away in the past calendar year for an idea. The people who have stepped in to take their place aren’t all bad, but some of them can be called more than a little biased. Especially in regards to the Chicago Bears and specifically Mitch Trubisky it seems.
Few have fulfilled that tag more so these days than Bill Barnwell. This shouldn’t be a surprise. Barnwell is a classic east coaster. A native of Boston. Everybody knows people from places like Boston or New York tend to think of every place more than 200 miles away from the Atlantic seaboard to be the wasteland and not worth consideration.
Don’t believe it? Consider this. He just did projections for player contracts looking ahead to the 2020 season and who would likely be locked to still be on their respective teams, who would be gone and who are on the bubble. Check out what he had to say about Trubisky.
“Trubisky hasn’t shown enough to guarantee that he’ll be on the roster come 2020, although the Blake Bortles of the North still has plenty of time to grow.”
However, then one looks at the Buffalo Bill. An eastern team, remember. They skim across their list of “locks” for 2020 and what name do they happen to see? Josh Allen. Really? That’s interesting. A player who was completing 54% of his passes with 2 touchdowns and 5 interceptions BEFORE injuring his throwing elbow is a lock for 2020 but Trubisky isn’t?
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Okay then. Guess it’s time to tear down his ludicrous comparison.
Mitch Trubisky has been consistently superior to Blake Bortles
No doubt Barnwell is trying to pass off the popular conceptions about Trubisky as a fact he’s watched any sort of tape, which is doubtful. The funny part is he could’ve made it easy on himself if he’d stuck to the math. Numbers are always the clearest way possible to make a comparison between two players, and in this regard, it hasn’t been an overly close contest.
Bortles rookie year:
- 280 completions
- 475 attempts
- 58.9 completion %
- 2908 yards
- 11 touchdowns
- 17 interceptions
- 69.5 rating
Trubisky rookie year:
- 196 completions
- 330 attempts
- 59.4 completion %
- 2193 yards
- 7 touchdowns
- 7 interceptions
- 77.5 rating
Bortles second year:
- 355 completions
- 606 attempts
- 58.6 completion %
- 4428 yards
- 35 touchdowns
- 18 interceptions
- 88.2 rating
Trubisky second year:
- 155 completions
- 240 attempts
- 64.6 completion %
- 1814 yards
- 15 touchdowns
- 6 interceptions
- 97.8 rating
I mean it’s hard to make an argument that Barnwell’s statement is true at this point. Trubisky was superior to Bortles as rookies in terms of efficiency. He also went 4-8 while Bortles went 3-10. Then in the second season, Bortles had a ton of yards and touchdowns but also still didn’t complete enough passes and threw too many interceptions. Trubisky is far superior to him in both of those categories and his passer rating proves that.
Need more proof? Bortles fumbled the ball 23 times his first two years. Trubisky fumbled 13. Bortles rushed for two touchdowns. Trubisky has rushed for four. Bortles won eight games. Trubisky has already reached that mark with over a half of his second season still to go. Bortles has 13 interceptions returned for a touchdown. Trubisky has zero.
Normally when a comparison of two players is made, their numbers should line up fairly well, right? So answer this. If Bortles survived five seasons on his current team despite putting up far less efficient numbers to this point, why in the world can’t Trubisky be considered a lock to still be around in 2020? Mr. Barnwell has some explaining to do.
