Tony Dungy shares a lot in common with John Fox. Both are former players who came up as defensive coaches. Both got their starts in the NFC South (Fox with Carolina and Dungy with Tampa Bay). Also both had their greatest career runs with Peyton Manning at quarterback. One would think they’d have common ground on what it takes to develop a young quarterback.
Turns out that’s not the case. In fact it might be the polar opposite of the case. Dungy, being the excellent football mind and Hall of Famer he is, went on PFT Live recently. He revealed that he’d been watching the development of Mitch Trubisky carefully over the summer. He also has watched each of the Bears’ first four games this season.
He wasn’t shy about admitting his complete and utter puzzlement at why Fox refuses to give the rookie an opportunity to start.
“What I saw in training camp, and what I saw in the preseason games, I don’t understand why Trubisky is not playing now,” Dungy said.
“You won three games last year,” Dungy said. “You mortgaged the future to take this guy. Put him in and let him get the experience. Now, if he struggles and you’ve got to go to Mike Glennon to bail him out, that’s fine. But he didn’t look like he was struggling, to me, in training camp.”
Again this is a man with a bust in Canton and a Super Bowl ring on his finger. He knows what he’s talking about. For him to say that, it might be time to question Fox’s sanity.
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Tony Dungy further explained why the decision is so unusual
Much of the confusion centers around the entire dynamic with Trubisky. The Bears invested a #2 overall pick in him. This after trading up to do so. Clearly they saw enough to be convinced he could be great in Chicago. Yet for some reason despite him outplaying Glennon in the preseason, he was still benched. Dungy believes their biggest mistake was not fully committing to him after that.
“When you draft Mitchell Trubisky, you have to make an organizational decision,” Dungy said. “When I came to Tampa in 1996 they had drafted Trent Dilfer with the sixth pick in the draft. We sat down, Rich McKay and I and the ownership, and we said, ‘We’re going to play Trent Dilfer for two years. I don’t care if we don’t win a game, I don’t care if we go to the Super Bowl. He’s going to play, because we have to find out if he justifies this sixth pick. Is he our guy?’
And we were all on board with that. And that’s what it’s got to be. This organization made a decision, somehow, not to start Mitchell Trubisky no matter what happens in training camp or the preseason, Glennon was going to start. I think the organization has to change.”
People have tried to drag Ryan Pace into this decision. He does deserve criticism, sure. One for not investing more resources at wide receiver and paying Glennon way too much. At the same time the depth chart decision fall on Fox. That’s been made clear for the past two years. So this extended torture over the past four weeks was his call, plain and simple. If so, it’s time for a change.
