People continue to think that Mitch Trubisky is nothing more than an extension of head coach Matt Nagy. A puppet at the mercy of a great play caller. People have tried to say for weeks that this isn’t the case, but the story endures. This is likely because the national perception of Trubisky remains lukewarm at best compared to others like Patrick Mahomes and Deshaun Watson.
There is no more perfect example of this perception than what former QB Dan Orlovsky explained on the 26th. During his tape review, he found a sequence where the Bears ran the same pass formation twice. On the first one they saw the 49ers safety drive down hard on the receiver running an out route.
Then on the next series, they ran the same play again, only this time the receiver baited the safety on the out and then turned up the field for a big 43-yard gain.
🚨🚨ALL OF YOU @ChicagoBears fans-Your coach is A WEAPON. This is called in game adjusting. This is called being aggressive. This is called having feel and seeing the game differently. WOW👀👀👀👏👏 #Bears fans RT THIS! @thekapman @kfishbain @SarahSpain #NFLGamepass pic.twitter.com/aj8HTqxa4B
— Dan Orlovsky (@danorlovsky7) December 26, 2018
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Orlovsky was of the belief that it was Nagy who directed that slight adjustment. As it turns out? That isn’t true. Offensive coordinator Mark Helfrich revealed that it was none other than Trubisky himself who directed Allen Robinson to change his route, leading to the biggest play of the game.
Bears OC Mark Helfrich said Trubisky checked to the 43-yard play to Allen Robinson in SF: "Mitch did a great job of changing the route up at the line of scrimmage. … Early air on a double-move, that’s progression as far as the development of a quarterback."
— Kevin Fishbain (@kfishbain) December 27, 2018
Mitch Trubisky isn’t just a snot-nosed kid anymore at QB
The problem with the previously referenced perception about Trubisky is it makes people assume that he’s nothing more than an athletic thrower of the football. That he doesn’t work his tail off every single day to get better. Living in the film room. Working constantly with teammates to get on the same page. He wants to be great and it was only a matter of time before all that work began to pay off.
Things like learning what a defense did one drive and crafting an adjustment to take advantage of it the next are what the best quarterbacks do. Can anybody remember the last time a Bears quarterback did something like that? Jay Cutler, while not stupid in any regard, wasn’t known for such things.
In truth it was Jim McMahon who had a similar reputation, constantly changing routes or calling audibles to create big plays. Mike Ditka hated when he did that stuff. Nagy seems to encourage it. Based on recent results, Trubisky is only going to get better at this as the games continue stacking together.
If he can avoid the injury plague that ruined McMahon’s career, there’s no telling how good he’ll become.
