Chicago Bears: What’s next for Mitchell Trubisky after option decline?

The Chicago Bears decided to decline Mitch Trubisky’s fifth-year option. What’s next for the embattled quarterback?

Since the start of the 2019 season, things have been tough for Chicago Bears quarterback Mitchell Trubisky. He struggled throughout the season and suffered an injury to his non-throwing shoulder. He led his team to a disappointing 8-8 record after making a playoff appearance in 2018.

If he thought he could get a chance to regroup during the offseason he was wrong. Sure, general manager, Ryan Pace said that the team would go into the 2020 season with Trubisky as the starting quarterback but things wouldn’t be the same as they were when Chase Daniel was the backup.

With Daniel as the backup, Trubisky knew he had no real competition to push him. No way would the Bears even think about going to Daniel with Trubisky struggling. Despite Trubisky being a huge part of his tenure in Chicago, Pace decided to pick a player who could actually compete and possibly beat out Trubisky — former Super Bowl MVP Nick Foles.

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Even though he didn’t say anything between the end of the season press conference and the start of free agency, Pace might have told everyone his plan. He and head coach Matt Nagy overhauled the offensive coaching staff. Now, Bill Lazor is the offensive coordinator and John DiFilippo is the quarterbacks coach. Combined with Nagy, they all coach the system that Nick Foles flourished in with the Philadelphia Eagles. Oh, and Nagy got to coach up Foles when the two were in both Philadelphia and Kansas City.

Seeing the changes made, then, was it really a surprise that the Bears went after Foles? Many people don’t believe in coincidences and feel that things are stacked against Trubisky. Now there is a real competition and the incumbent quarterback might be in trouble.

After acquiring Foles, Pace spoke on the quarterback battle, per ESPN:

"We’ve increased competition at a critical position and we talked to both players, and the way we view this is it’s an open competition. And credit to both those guys for embracing it."

Things got worse over the past weekend. Just before the May 4th deadline to pick up first-round picks’ fifth-year options, the Bears declined to do it for Trubisky. Deshaun Watson and Patrick Mahomes, two quarterbacks chosen after Trubisky and enjoying success (and subsequently compared to), had their options picked up. Yes, the option is guaranteed in case of injury, but it’s still a perception that the Chicago Bears lost some faith in Trubisky.

Trubisky is now in a dogfight. Pace said that whenever training camp starts Trubisky will be the first one taking snaps, we all know it doesn’t matter who starts at the beginning. It’s who’s standing at the end of training camp and starts the season as the number one guy.

What’s next for the embattled quarterback?

What happens now for Trubisky? Well, whatever has kept him from being the quarterback the Bears felt he was needs to go away. His backers give a number of reasons why he struggled. The offensive line was horrible, the receivers dropped too many passes, the running game was ineffective, there was no tight end unit to help.

Those reasons may or may not be good ones, but today it’s all a moot point. He must step up and play well because Foles has the same offense but he has a better resume. If Foles comes in and overcomes the same obstacles that many felt kept Trubisky back, then that spells trouble for Trubisky.

Trubisky needs to play as well as he ever has to win the job. As I mentioned earlier, Foles has a stronger grasp of this offense so Trubisky needs to catch up, despite playing in the system for two seasons.

Things will be bad for Trubisky if he loses the starting job. If Foles plays well and wins the competition, then plays well during the season, Trubisky becomes an afterthought. He’ll end up playing the Daniel role if that happens.

If Trubisky doesn’t win the battle, he could find himself a free agent looking for a job in 2021. The offense doesn’t have to be a juggernaut for the Bears to be a playoff contender. They have an elite defense that just got better on paper.

As bad as the offense struggled last season they lost five of their eight games by a score. In those five losses, if they scored 32 more points (an average of 6.4 points per game), then we don’t have this conversation. That means the Bears finish with a 13-3 record and in the thick of the playoffs.

Of course, that’s a would’ve, could’ve situation. However, it shows how close the Bears really were to winning. If Foles comes in and gets the offense to score just a few more points per game and the team starts winning more consistently, then he’ll have a stranglehold on the starting job.

Trubisky needs to get off to a fast start. He needs to show that he got the kick in the pants he needed to get going, similar to what happened to Robbie Gould. Gould had to go to another team to show that, though. Trubisky can do that in Chicago so he could stay on the team.