Remember a couple of weeks ago how it was hinted that a member of the Chicago Bears top brass was sour on Mitch Trubisky? I speculated at the time that the person in question was most likely head coach Matt Nagy. This was for a number of reasons. For one this is not a quarterback the coach hand-picked himself. It was a project he inherited from GM Ryan Pace. A challenge he willingly undertook.
However, this is also a man who has coached really good players at that position including Nick Foles, Alex Smith, and Patrick Mahomes. He also had a front row seat for Donovan McNabb in Philadelphia. This guy knows how that position is supposed to look. His frustration with Trubisky at times during last season was evident. However, it’s difficult to pinpoint any one moment where maybe that switch might’ve flipped.
Or is it? Dan Wiederer of the Chicago Tribune brought up an interesting moment from Nagy’s end-of-season press conference with Ryan Pace back in January. A moment I admittedly glossed right over at the time. Looking back now though, the fact that the coach was still thinking about it three months later should’ve been a notable red flag.
Matt Nagy may not see a killer instinct in Trubisky
The play came in the third quarter of the Bears’ road game in Washington against the Redskins. Ha Ha Clinton-Dix had just gotten his second interception of the night, setting the team up at Washington’s 23-yard line. A touchdown would give them a 34-3 lead and basically put the game on ice. Facing 3rd and 12, Nagy dialed up a great play call that popped Anthony Miller wide open down the left sideline.
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Trubisky failed to even look in that direction, instead settling for a check down to tight end Trey Burton. This resulted in a 44-yard field goal attempt that was subsequently missed.
“We had a scenario there where we could get a nice big lead on those guys,” Nagy said three months later. “And we made a decision … to check the ball down. I can say this to you because (Trubisky) knows this. And it’s for you all to understand the growth of him understanding how we think in that moment — when we have a nice big lead to get to a situation to end the game. And we didn’t (do so) in that scenario.”
That moment stuck with Nagy for months afterward.
Trubisky not only showed a lack of awareness of where he was supposed to go with the ball. His utter unwillingness to stand in the pocket and go for the kill was impossible to ignore. For a guy who got the nickname “Pretty Boy Assassin” at one point in time, he certainly didn’t look like one.
Would Patrick Mahomes have checked it down like that? Or Deshaun Watson? Or Aaron Rodgers? Or Drew Brees? The fact that it’s hard to envision such an idea paints a pretty clear picture. Looking back on it now, things did seem a little bit different between the coach and quarterback after that game.
