Mitchell Trubisky Has Start and Matt Nagy's Confidence
Some Bears fans might recall former Bears offensive coordinator Terry Shea giving himself a B grade when his offense was last in the league in 2004.
Perhaps it wasn't quite this bad but Bears quaterback Mitchell Trubisky gave himself a decent review after turning the ball over three times in Sunday night's 41-25 loss at Green Bay.
"I thought it was pretty good overall," Trubisky said of his effort. "I think some of my misses I was putting the ball in a careful spot where it was us or nobody.
"Especially after the turnovers, I was thinking I was doing that a little bit more, just taking care of the football. And other times, I was just throwing it away to not create a negative play or a sack but accuracy is definitely something that I've been focused on."
To the person who matters most, coach Matt Nagy, Trubisky was close enough in his assessment because he was named the Bears starter Sunday at Soldier Field against the Detroit Lions.
Quarterback Nick Foles was healthy enough to practice Wednesday, 2 1/2 weeks after his hip injury against Minnesota. He was practicing only on a limited basis, though, and Nagy didn't want to delve into the sordid waters of whether Trubisky will be starting or even would have started last week without the injury.
"For us, for the offense in general, at times when you look across the board in the NFL you want to have consistency at that quarterback position, just for different reasons," Nagy said. "Regardless of the talent, I think it's just that one voice in the huddle. Here we are and Mitch is back at it and we understand that.
"What we want to do now is be able to work towards his strengths. I'll go back to last week again and I know I talked about how great of a practice he had all week and that doesn't change from what he did versus in the game. I know we weren't excellent in that game, I know we weren't great, but he did have a really good practice. So we want to see another week this week and then see how he does in the game against Detroit."
In six games against Detroit, Trubisky is 137 of 203 for 1,601 yards with 14 touchdowns, four interceptions and a passer rating of 106.0. He's been at 104.2 or higher in his last four games against them, all wins.
As for Trubisky, his assessment of his play against the Packers included being careful with the ball and not creating negative plays or sacks—although he had problems on both fronts.
On one sack Trubisky stood along the sideline after rolling out to his right, couldn't find a receiver, stood and looked, then stepped out of bounds for a sack instead of simply throwing away the ball.
"I mean that's obviously something we covered on the field and talked about," qurterbacks coach John DeFilippo said. "Obviously that can't happen and Mitch got a little confused on the run where he was at on the field. That was what happened there."
On the first interception thrown in the end zone, Trubisky said: "I probably would'a liked to check it down or scramble, but I was trying to be aggressive early on. That's what we were preaching this week as a team."
As for the second pick near the numbers downfield into triple coverage, he said it came out of his hand wrong: "It just wasn't spinning the way I wanted it to. It was flustering a little bit and I thought I could get to where I wanted it to go. And I felt like it just got caught up a little bit. When I let go of it, it felt like a ball that was going to be us or nobody. But the way it came out, obviously, it landed in the wrong hands and they made a good play but I also felt like I could have went somewhere else with the football on that play. Just a forced error and can't have it."
Foles had one game in his seven starts and one relief effort when he threw two interceptions. Foles never turned it over three times in a game as Trubisky did.
"It was kinda hard to assess because overall we were playing from behind the whole time, which is not ideal," Trubisky said. "Gotta take away the turnovers, gotta protect the football. That's pretty much the main thing I'm concerned with.
"I can't put the defense in tough spots. I can't take the offense off the field like that, with sudden changes, and just putting the ball in harm's way. You're just not going to win games, or be in games, if you turn the ball over. And that's on me."
Trubisky cited some other intangibles as positives for the offense after his effort.
"Yeah, I think the offense felt that were just moving the ball a little bit better," he said. "We were a little bit better on first and second down. You saw the run game open up a little bit."
The Bears ran for 122 yards. They hadn't reached 100 yards since Week 3.
"And we were making them cover the whole field and I think when I'm out there, there is always the option for a quarterback run that they have to account for as well," Trubisky said. "I think we're excited about those things.
"I thought our overall execution was a little bit better last week. And I thought our sense of urgency and tempo in and out of the huddle, I think that's something that the defense has to account for. And I think those things help us get into a better rhythm and you saw us move the ball a little bit better but we don't want to be down by a bunch of scores obviously to not be in the situation which we call 'save mode' for us."
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