Mitch Trubisky fell off big in 2019. People have searched for answers as to why. Is there one overarching explanation to it all? Probably not. A lot of factors went into it. Some that weren’t in his control like a bad running game, inconsistent protection, and playcalling that was suspect at times. However, most of the issues stemmed from the quarterback himself. Trubisky wasn’t accurate enough with his throws, struggled to read defenses, and lacked any sort of decisiveness way too often.
What’s interesting about it all is that NFL defenses didn’t do anything special for him. According to Sheil Kapadia of The Athletic, their solution turned out to be surprisingly simple. It wasn’t harassing him with lots of blitzes or forcing him to stay in the pocket. It came down to just playing more man coverage.
Seriously. That’s it. The numbers don’t lie. Trubisky was one of the worst in the NFL when it came to throwing against man coverage.
“It’s not pretty across the board, but Trubisky really struggled against man coverage. Against Cover-1 — man coverage with a single deep safety — Trubisky ranked 30th in EPA per play. He performed better against zone coverages.
What’s interesting is that Foles has been the opposite. During his 2017 run with the Eagles, he averaged 0.39 EPA per dropback against man coverage. That number was 0.43 in 2018. Granted, the sample was not huge (116 dropbacks in 2017 and 104 in 2018), but both marks would have ranked in the top five against man coverage last season.”
This explains why Mitch Trubisky grew so cautious
It’s amazing how such a stat helps explain so much. It was a surprise that Trubisky grew so timid over the course of 2019 when it came to taking chances with the football. A big reason for that was because of seeing more man coverage. Teams were daring him to throw it into tighter windows and be accurate. Too often he settled for the check down or tried to scramble instead. He only seemed to throw deep when guys were wide open and even then he couldn’t hit them.
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This why they went out to get Nick Foles.
“He’s a more aggressive passer and will take chances against tight man coverage. Foles also likes to push the ball downfield. Sports Info Solutions marked 43.6 percent of Trubisky’s downfield throws (20 yards or more from the line of scrimmage) as on target; that ranked 19th among starters.”
Trubisky was too afraid of making mistakes last year. Too afraid of throwing the interception. That caution is understandable but the problem is it’s not how top quarterbacks play the game. They can’t afford to worry about that. Their focus must be on scoring points. Sometimes that means taking risks against tight coverage. It won’t always work out, but if done int he right situations the majority of them should.