Yesterday, I brought up an interesting question on Twitter after reading a couple reports on Chicago Bears activities and meetings at the Senior Bowl (more details below):
I got a lot of interesting responses and viewpoints on this (and of course, a TON of hate), but thought the question deserved some more context and exploring. Hence, this column.
But I want to preface this by saying I do believe that Mitch Trubisky can and will take the next step under Matt Nagy next year and operate his offense at a high level. Now, on to the item of contemplation.
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What started all this? Well, SM’s Bears Insider, Erik Lambert, reported yesterday that the Bears met with Oklahoma State QB Mason Rudolph at the Senior Bowl. This comes one day after they met with Washington State QB Luke Falk at the same venue. Neither QB is expected to go particularly high in the draft, though it’s interesting that the Bears also tried to have a conversation with Oklahoma QB Baker Mayfield, who is expected to be a Top 5 pick and in my opinion is the best quarterback in this draft.
What this tells us is that the Bears likely aren’t done adding young talent to the QB room. And that’s great — GM Ryan Pace has said he’d like to add a quarterback every year, if possible. Last year, he bet the farm on Trubisky. And this year, it seems they’re looking to add young depth with upside to groom under Nagy and to hopefully contribute effectively in the disaster scenario where Trubisky goes down. There is nothing wrong with this strategy — a team can never have too much talent in that room.
I promise I’ll get to discussing the question soon. But first, a trip down memory lane.
Last year, before the draft, the Bears guaranteed free agent flop a cool $18 million and essentially guaranteed him the starting job without competition. With that order of business out of the way, nobody expected the Bears to go all in on Trubisky. But they did. Immediately, the Countdown started, and when training camp rolled around, Trubisky was reportedly outplaying Glennon all day, every day in Bourbounnais (yeah, I can rhyme!).
Then, the preseason happened. Glennon played like Moses Moreno in the opener against Denver. Meanwhile, Trubisky, in relief, took Chicago by storm by leading multiple scoring drives and displaying good command of what he was asked to do on offense. The next game against Arizona, Glennon again played a woefully poor game while Trubisky, again in relief, contributed another strong game. In the third and most important preseason game against Tennessee, Glennon looked much better, to be fair.
But Trubisky also played very well against Tennessee, and at that point, it was too late for Glennon. Trubisky brought a certain energy to the team that Glennon didn’t, and it showed on the field. Fans, media, and even many of the Bears’ own players called for Trubisky to take over the starting job because of his strong training camp and preseason showings. To see many of the players, especially Akiem Hicks, a vocal and respected leader on defense, subtly call for Trubisky was telling. It was the beginning of the end for Glennon in Chicago.
Now, fast forward to this offseason.
The Bears fired John Fox and went all in on establishing an environment they believe will maximize Trubisky’s potential: They hired Matt Nagy, brought in Mark Helfrich, and kept Dave Ragone. There’s some serious intrigue here and many believe Nagy will coax out the best of Trubisky.
But the Bears don’t seem to be done tinkering with that room. With the Bears sniffing around some of the later round QB prospects, one has to believe they’ll be looking to add one to the mix. Names to keep an eye on include Falk, Rudolph, and less-heralded guys like Kyle Lauletta, Tanner Lee, Kurt Benkert, and Mike White. I could be wrong, but I imagine that training camp this year will begin similarly to last year — with an acknowledged starter (Trubisky) and the backups competing for depth chart ordering.
The issue here though is that Trubisky isn’t exactly established, much like Glennon wasn’t last year. He flashed a lot of upside and improvement last year to inspire belief that he can be the guy. But he is still young, inexperienced, and a work in progress. And though the overall West Coast scheme should be similar to what Dowell Loggains ran here last year, Trubisky still needs to learn the intricacies of a new playbook, new verbiage, and add in a variety of new concepts that Helfrich brings with him. So in a way, Trubisky and any young QB that comes in are on somewhat of a level playing field.
Here’s where that hypothetical comes in: What if the young QB comes in and executes at a higher level than Trubisky does? What happens?
Now keep in mind, I’m not considering the scenario where the young QB is playing well and Trubisky is bad. If that’s the case, Pace and Nagy won’t be around to make any further decisions. Trubisky is supposed to be the franchise.
For sure. But if Trubisky executes at a high level, and the young QB is not only matching him stride for stride, but outplaying him, it’s an interesting conundrum.
I can’t imagine there’s a chance in hell that the Bears would bench Trubisky in favor of another QB. The optics would be way too weird. That leaves us with a few scenarios:
1. Would the Bears just roll with both QBs and feel extremely good about their young and potentially capable backup as Trubisky starts?
2. Do they trade the backup right away to another QB-needy team and bring in a haul?
3. Or, *gulp*, do they trade Trubisky knowing he could likely net a hell of a lot more back than the young QB given his draft status and potential? The likelihood of this scenario given that Trubisky is Pace’s guy is miniscule. But still, throwing it out there.
The reality is the Bears haven’t had a good problem like this since … ever. And granted that it’s a hypothetical, I don’t think we have a clear idea about how they would handle it or what the right way to handle it would be. I just thought it was worth laying out the scenario and thinking about it.
The easy answer and the one that makes most sense to me is the first scenario I mentioned above — roll with Trubisky and feel good that you have solid young potential who has proven himself in camp to back him up. Grooming a young, quality backup at the same time in order to create a potential Jimmy Garoppolo situation is incredibly enticing. And if Mitch is playing well, even if someone else is playing better, there really shouldn’t be a reason to go away from him because it means Pace was on the right track, AND it means Nagy & Co. are doing what they were hired to do. I’m not sure why the Bears would mess with that.
But who knows?
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Happy to hear your thoughts on this too. What would you do? Follow and Tweet me @DhruvKoul if you’d like to continue the discussion or yell at me for daring to consider a situation where Tru gets traded. I’d probably yell at me too.
