Chicago Bears: Pressure to win squarely on Mitch Trubisky’s shoulders
Now that the Chicago Bears have a title contending roster, the pressure to win is now squarely on Mitchell Trubisky’s shoulders.
The Chicago Bears did an excellent job of revamping the roster. Two seasons ago, they had their fourth consecutive last-place finish and went winless in the NFC North. Ownership wasn’t happy, and neither were the fans who had to sit in the cold and watch a lot of bad games.
Then, in 2018, after all the moves general manager Ryan Pace made, the magic returned. The Bears went 12-4 and won their division. In fact, had it not been for Aaron Rodgers‘ magic, the Bears could have gone from winless to undefeated in their division.
This offseason, there wasn’t a need for a revamp. Yes, they had to make big decisions to let go of key players (Adrian Amos, Bryce Callahan, Jordan Howard), but they found pretty good replacements and now look to the draft to put the finishing touches.
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Now that the Bears have a strong roster, winning is expected. Last year was great because it was unexpected. Many would’ve been happy if the team won eight games. Now, however, the fans want more. In addition to having a winning record, they expect a long playoff run. The pressure is on.
Who is the player with the most pressure now? Of course, it’s the face of the franchise, the quarterback — it is on Mitchell Trubisky.
Trubisky did a good job playing in head coach Matt Nagy’s high-octane offense. The Bears were 11-3 with him under center. He completed 66.6 percent of his passes for 3,223 yards and had 24 touchdown passes. In addition, he ran for 421 yards and had three touchdown runs.
Now, with another offseason in the system, and even more weapons coming out of the backfield, more is expected from Trubisky. He needs to refine some aspects of his game to help the offense take another step forward.
One of the criticisms of Trubisky was his interceptions. He had 12 in 2018. Even so, a 2:1 touchdown to interception rate is good. It’s just that it should be better. While people keep talking about Trubisky’s interceptions, he went his last four games, including the playoffs, without throwing any. In fact, he threw 137 passes without throwing a pick.
As the season went on, he seemed to feel more comfortable running the offense. In some of his early games, he sometimes looked like a deer caught in the headlights. In his final six regular-season games, though, he completed 70.1 percent of his passes for 1,274 yards and eight touchdowns. He threw five interceptions as well, but three of them came in one game against the Los Angeles Rams, a game he started after missing two weeks with a shoulder injury.
This season, Trubisky should have increases across the board (and hopefully a decrease in interceptions). He knows that with an elite defense and better players who are fits in the system, the pressure is now squarely on him. While some of his deficiencies were dismissed as growing pains, I don’t think that will be the case this season.
The pressure isn’t just going to come from fans. Nagy also has more expectations of Trubisky. Stacy Dales of the NFL Network recently spoke about Nagy’s expectations (per ChicagoBears.com):
"When they enter OTA’s, they will be fine-tuning instead of learning a new language, specifically for quarterback Mitch Trubisky. Last year was all about learning his progressions… Now, he’ll be expected to diagnose the defense on pre-snap on every down."
The pressure is now on Trubsiky. In order for the offense to get even better, he needs to take a step up and show how much better he can be. People see what Patrick Mahomes did in his second year with the Kansas City Chiefs.
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Chicago doesn’t need for Trubisky to win the league’s MVP award. If he takes that step forward and helps the offense improve even more, there will be many happy faces around Halas Hall as well as the city of Chicago.