Trey Burton Situation Plagues Bears as Much as QB Issue
The future after Sunday's final gun against the Minnesota Vikings includes Mitchell Trubisky.
The Bears hope it also includes Trey Burton.
Whether it includes anyone else at quarterback besides Trubisky, and what it includes at other positions of need on offense will be decided starting March 18 with the beginning of the free agent signing period.
Anyone who thought the Bears simply would jettison Trubisky in the fourth year of his rookie contract can be assured this will not happen. Matt Nagy has already begun considering Trubisky 2020.
"I know how he works," Nagy said. "I know how personal he's going to take this. We need to be there as coaches to help balance that. There is a balance to it. It's about being supportive, all of us, throughout this thing.
"You look at the growth that he had throughout the year in different areas and you go back into the whys of some of the other stuff and that's what we'll do."
When the Bears look beyond Trubisky's inconsistency at reading defenses and making the right throws, the whys of the other stuff begins at tight end.
They were hurt by never having Trey Burton available. GM Ryan Pace referred to it as "minor, kind of a day-by-day thing" but Burton never recovered from the groin injury a few days before the start of the season, then suffered a calf injury and wound up on injured reserve.
The injury cost them one of the blockers critical in the running game to helping out the offensive linemen, and in the passing game a target whose role within the scheme sets up other players for success in addition to providing a key target to Trubisky.
A key question facing the Bears is whether they'll ever see the same Burton again. He hasn't made a reception since the loss to the Los Angeles Chargers and has been on injured reserve since Nov. 16.
"He's had a year of trying to get healthy, and he's not there yet," Nagy said of Burton. "He's just going to be working through that, and we'll see where he’s at here as he goes. He's still working on getting healthy."
There is nothing concrete about Burton's return. When Nagy was asked if Burton's return is expected, he said: "I would hope so. I don't see why not."
It comes down to hope, and Nagy knows the Bears have to be more aggressive in their approach to improving a key position.
Burton in a blog post mentioned the Bears sought a medical assessment on why Burton still experiences groin problems after his sports hernia surgery and haven't had a satisfactory answer.
"I don't know that," Nagy said about the situation. "That's something that we'll get into here at the end of the season. We'll go through literally every person in major detail. For me, I just know big picture right now of everything. We'll get with him."
The importance of the U-tight end spot is it affects other spots. Tarik Cohen's down season, for example, has had something to do with not having Burton available.
"It's the domino effect, so yeah, you have a little bit of that," Nagy said. "There's other factors, too, that go into it. Whether it’s--there’s a lot of different things. I’ll just leave it at that."
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