When discussing Mitch Trubisky and his awful downturn in 2019, the search for answers is ongoing. Most people just chalk it up to him not being good enough. Not only did his accuracy remain inconsistent, missing too many open targets. He also ran considerably less than the year before. This has led to a theory. One that involves what happened to him during the first quarter of the win over Minnesota last September.
Trubisky scrambled left, got tackled from behind and suffered a nasty-looking injury to his left shoulder. Reports came out he’d torn his labrum. Rather than settle for surgery, the QB sat out the next game and returned following the bye week in a shoulder harness. He played the rest of the season that way.
Adam Jahns of The Athletic revealed that the injury was more of a factor in his performance than people realize.
Trubisky’s shoulder injury — although it was his non-throwing arm — was more of a hindrance than he and the team ever let on, sources said. He actually hinted at it Friday.
“Obviously, health comes down to a little bit of luck,” Trubisky said.
Mitch Trubisky is hoping no pain or brace help his odds
Critics will argue that the injury was to his non-throwing shoulder. How could it impact his play that much? Here’s the thing. Torn labrums are painful with just everyday motion. So try to imagine raising the arm as part of a throwing motion 30-40 times a game. Not to mention taking the occasional shots to it from defenders. It’s a virtual guarantee Trubisky was playing in constant pain.
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It can be hard enough to execute in the NFL with a clear head. Doing so with constant jolts of pain every time you throw? That makes it even harder. To say nothing of the shoulder brace, which undoubtedly restricted his throwing motion as well.
This sort of thing has happened before. Back in 2009, Matthew Stafford got off to a rough start but was starting to play well from weeks three to 11. During that span, he had a 74.2 passer rating and completed just over 56% of his passes. Keep in mind he was a rookie on a team that had just gone 0-16 the year before.
Then he separated his left shoulder in a win over Cleveland.
Rather than consider surgery, Stafford decided to play through it. In the two subsequent games, he barely completed 44% of his passes with a 34.5 passer rating. It was ugly and he was in obvious pain. Luckily a minor knee injury gave the Lions an excuse to put him on IR before it got any worse.
Trubisky is not the type of guy to make excuses, but he clearly believes the player fans saw after that injury happened wasn’t the real him.