The Chicago Bears; A Grave Mistake

In 2019 , Mitch Trubisky really struggled as the Chicago Bears QB missing the playoffs with an 8-8 record. His numbers declined tremendously in that year compared to his 12-4 campaign with his 17 TD to 10 INT ratio and 63 completion percentage. In 2020, Trubisky seemed better in the first two games, both wins. Trubisky threw 5 TDs and 2 INTs in his first two games with a 66 completion percentage but the offense was still struggling. Matt Nagy switched to newly acquired QB Nick Foles in 2020 but the offense was even worse with Foles at the helm. The Bears mid-season at a 5-5 record had one of the worst offensive efficiency in the NFL. This wasn’t completely Foles fault, the Bears offense called by Nagy was a very predictable vanilla high school system. The offense was basically a hundred different ways to throw a 5 yard passing route with the Bears being ranked 31th in yards per pass, ranked 30th in yards per play, ranked 30th yards per run, and 30th in third down conversion percentage (according to NBC Sports). The Bears were also ranked as the most pass heavy team in the NFL and at this point of the NFL season had the worst passing offense.

Trubisky returned to the helm after Matt Nagy gave up his play-calling duties to Bill Lazor and Foles was moved to 2nd string. During the last 6 games Trubisky started in 2020 he was a completely different quarterback. The Bears averaged 30 points a game the final six games, in his final 5 games had a 74 completion percentage, averaged 6.9 yards per pass, and in 3 games the HB had over 100 rushing yards due to the balanced offense. With Mitch Trubisky, at age 27, in his prime and a proven NFL starter with the right coaching system the Bears should have kept him for one more year via franchise tag. The benefit of keeping Trubisky for one more year would be to develop the new young QB (Justin Fields) and ease him into the position, while having a very good chance to win football games. But instead, the Bears are going to start a statistically worse quarterback, Andy Dalton who is way past his prime. In the 2019 and 2020 seasons Dalton threw 30 TD and 22 INT with a 61.4 completion percentage. Trubisky had better stats in 2020 even though Dalton had a much better HB and WR core than the Bears. With a bad season the stability of the organization could collapse, with Nagy on the hot seat. This would result in the Bears wasting their talent on the defensive end and wasting years rebuilding this team.