Chicago Bears: Mitchell Trubisky struggles as practices ramp up

The Chicago Bears QB battle wages on and Mitchell Trubisky is struggling right now.

There are just over two weeks left before the Chicago Bears face the Detroit Lions in Week 1 of the regular season. There are decisions to be made on a number of position battles. The most important battle going on is who leads the offense — the quarterback. Mitchell Trubisky and Nick Foles are locked in a battle for the starting job.

So far in camp, neither quarterback has pulled ahead of the other. They’ve each had their good days and bad days. The coaches had each throw high percentage passes for the most part. This week, however, the coaches are ramping up practices.

The practices are now more like game-time situations. Things are more intense as the defense is allowed to put more pressure on the quarterbacks. This means they cannot just stand there and take their time finding open receivers. Now they need to process things quicker.

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As the team nears opening week this ramped up practice helps make the coaches get closer to making a decision. This is something that could separate one player from the other. We keep hearing about how much improvement Trubisky made. Well, that is easier to see when there isn’t much pressure on him and he makes simple throws. His problem, however, is processing information quickly. When the pressure is on, he has trouble playing the same way he does in practice.

Foles thrives in this situation, however. He makes quick decisions and he gets rid of the ball quickly. He used that ability to get all the way to the Super Bowl, outperforming Tom Brady on his way to Super Bowl MVP.

With more intensity in practice, Trubisky’s accuracy went down. He overthrew receivers, threw the ball too high, and tried to force passes to covered receivers not seeing receivers who were available underneath. He also threw his first interception of camp. These are all things that he received criticism throughout his career. After practice head coach Matt Nagy spoke about Trubisky’s inaccuracy, per Yahoo:

"There’s a couple balls I think he would want back, a few here or there just with the accuracy might not be exactly what he wanted."

On the other hand, Foles looked better. Despite throwing two interceptions (one of them was on rookie wide receiver Darnell Mooney, who wasn’t in the proper position to make the catch. The other interception was on a throw Foles tried to force to tight end Cole Kmet. Jaylon Johnson, who is in a position battle himself, intercepted the pass.

For the rest of the session, though, Foles looked good. In spite of the good day, he didn’t do much to pull away from Trubisky.

The question now is how Trubisky responds. This could be a turning point in the competition. If Trubisky responds in a big way he could take grab a hold of the starting job. Foles may be doing just enough to be in the lead but he needs to do more if he wants to win the job.

Trubisky has to fall on his face for him to lose his job, and, at least to this point, that hasn’t happened. Trubisky is the better long-term option for the Bears if he shows he’s shown he’s ready for the job. If Foles doesn’t play lights out, Trubisky will keep his starting job.