Chicago Bears: Studs and duds vs. Vikings in Week 4

Stud: Nick Kwiatkoski

Okay, so I think I owe Nick Kwiatkoski an apology. I did not think the Chicago Bears should have kept him. I thought he’d be one of the cuts. I felt there were better options at linebacker, players who were more athletic than he.

Well, athletic or not, Kwiatkoski stepped in for Smith and did a great job. He finished with nine tackles (two for loss), a sack, and a forced fumble. The coaches did a good job of when they used him and he did a great job when he got on the field.

In a recent article, I predicted that Smith would have a big game. I never thought that I got the right position but the wrong player. Thank goodness Kwiatkoski had a great game. He’s an example of how the coaching staff can plug and play and still have a dominant defense.

Dud: Mitchell Trubisky

Now, before you grab your pitchforks and burn me at the stake, I’m not giving Trubisky a dud for his play. I mean, he only threw three passes and completed two of them. It was unfortunate that he went down. I thought he’d have a good game. His performance against Washington last week was a confident booster and I thought that gave him some momentum for the matchup against the Vikings.

The injury now might put Trubisky behind, depending on the severity of the injury. As of this writing, the Bears don’t feel that the injury won’t end his season but how long he’s out is still unknown.

Now we’ll have to go through the requisite “Daniel may be a better quarterback than Trubisky” talk. I think Daniel does have a better understanding of the offense and how to attack defenses through it but he’s spent practically his entire career running this system or something similar.

He can run this offense with his eyes closed (hopefully we don’t find out if he can). If Daniel continues to succeed, it’ll put added pressure on Trubisky. In addition to the criticism he receives now, he’ll have to deal with so-called experts thinking Daniel is a better quarterback.

We can hope that the injury allows Trubisky to see how Daniel executes the offense so he gets a better idea of how it’s supposed to run. That way he can come back and run it the most efficient way possible.