Matt Nagy understands the quiet feeling of desperation for Chicago Bears fans. They’ve been starved of great quarterback play for too long. They also know that Mitch Trubisky is the single-biggest deciding factor in whether this team can win the Super Bowl in 2019 as so many feel they’re capable of. He was good enough to get them to the playoffs last year, but not to get past the Philadelphia Eagles. So he needs to get better.
Nagy knows this. He also knows Trubisky won’t get there simply by saying he has to. The worst thing a coach can do is try to rush the development of his players. Especially at that position. If he puts too much on the QB’s plate, it’ll overwhelm him and become that much more difficult to execute the offense properly. When the quarterback struggles, the entire offense struggles. That is why Nagy has continued to preach patience and urge incremental progress from Trubisky.
He furthered this argument by using an example. One relayed through Albert Breer of the MMQB when the latter visited Bears training camp in July.
Trubisky’s QB rating was over 100 in four 2018 games, and under 80 in six. Accordingly, there was good, and there was bad. And in my conversations with Matt Nagy through it, he’d emphasize it took the Chiefs two-and-a-half years with Alex Smith before the offense was truly his. So Trubisky’s still in weeks of that process with his coach.
“He knows the offense. He’s learned it,” Nagy says. “And it’s not so much learning an offense, as a quarterback in this offense, it’s more about learning what to do with the offense. He’s working through that.”
Matt Nagy isn’t wrong in using Smith as an argument
Nagy knows what he’s talking about with quarterbacks, and his reference of Smith was an interesting one. So I did some research. Smith took over the Kansas City Chiefs offense in 2013. Over the next two-and-a-half seasons (38 games) he threw for 8,457 yards with 50 touchdowns and 16 interceptions, completing 62.98% of his passes. This resulted in a 91.4 passer rating.
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Over the remained of his time with the Chiefs (38 games), he threw for 9,061 yards, 52 touchdowns, and 17 interceptions while completing 67.39% of his passes. He finished with a 98.4 passer rating. That is a significant improvement. Smith was much more efficient and in command during the second half of his run with the team, ending it with the best season of his NFL career in 2017.
Nagy knows Trubisky is capable of playing at that level or even better. It’s a matter of getting him to the point where he has similar mastery of the system. This takes time. He is trying to tell everyone that the Bears can get there. All they need is a little more patience. Something that is in short supply these days.
