The Chicago Bears took plenty of heat from the outside for how bad their offense was in 2019. They finished 27th in both total yards and points scored. Not to mention 27th in rushing. It was an ugly all-around year. Something fans have seen way too often in this town. At the heart of it is the quarterback. Mitch Trubisky endured regressions across the board. Fewer yards. Fewer touchdowns. A worse quarterback rating. All the promise he showed in 2018 had seemingly evaporated.
While much of this is his own fault, some believe a big part of the blame goes to the system he plays in. One man who has spoken out on this several times is former NFL quarterback Sage Rosenfels. He is a critic of head coach Matt Nagy’s system because it puts too much pressure on the QB to run the show. Something Trubisky is clearly incapable of doing. He elaborated on this during an interview with the Halas Hall Brawl podcast.
“Mitchell Trubisky, he has some real ability. He reminds me of Jake Plummer…He went to the playoffs a lot of times and played a lot of football for a long time. I also know he was at his best in that Kyle Shanahan play action, bootleg, zone-running scheme style of football. He (Trubisky) is not in that. Mitch Trubisky is not in that (Kansas City) style. It relies on the quarterback to do everything. And I just don’t think that is the style of offense conducive to regularly winning.”
He went on to say he understands Nagy comes from Kansas City and that offense has had tons of success with such a style. However, they have the necessary pieces to make it work, especially at quarterback. Chicago is basically the old VHS version of that offense because Trubisky isn’t capable of running it.
Rosenfels isn’t alone in saying this about Mitch Trubisky
The timing of this statement is rather fitting. Not 24 hours before Rosenfels expressed this sentiment, former Bears right guard Kyle Long said something quite similar on ESPN 1000. He stated Trubisky was brought in to run a different offense. One predicated on running the football and utilizing his arm and legs on play action for big plays. It’s so easy to forget that Nagy wasn’t his first coach because 2017 seems like a lost year in retrospect. John Fox and Dowell Loggains were fired after that season.
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It is evident what GM Ryan Pace was trying to do when Nagy was hired. That Kansas City-style offense had delivered so much success. Not just with Alex Smith but also in Philadelphia with Carson Wentz and Nick Foles as well. It was as quarterback-friendly a system as one could find. The problem is it depends on the quarterback being able to process the field. Something that has proven to be a weakness for Trubisky.
Hence the predicament the Bears find themselves in. This leaves three possibilities. One? They stay the course and hope he finally starts to figure the system nuances out. Two? Nagy overhauls the scheme to a more run-oriented approach. Something he flirted with at times last season. Three? They go out and find a quarterback who better fits the current offense.
The next three months will reveal much.
