The Key Ways Mitchell Trubisky Actually Improved

The 2019 season is painted as often painted as a total disaster for Mitchell Trubisky and the Chicago Bears offense but there were a few ways his play picked up over the way he played in both of his first two seasons

While rumors swirl over what the Chicago Bears will do for a backup quarterback this season, only one real fact is apparent.

The fact hasn't changed.

Bears general manager Ryan Pace and coach Matt Nagy are giving Mitchell Trubisky the starting position to start another season, and it's all based on the idea Trubisky will improve.

"I think it's just growth as a young quarterback," Pace said. "There're things happening around him. It's not just him. He knows he needs to get better in those areas."

It's Pace's belief Trubisky's improvement can come at various aspects of the game in spurts

Nagy cited several ways at season's end for his quarterback to get better.

"One of the things he wants to improve a little bit is a little bit of his footwork in the pocket, a little bit more trust where you're not drifting out," Nagy said.

It's possible this could help Trubisky's deep passing become more accurate, an area where he continues to sit near the bottom of the league among all quarterbacks.

Trubisky took a career-high 88% of the snaps last year, threw more passes (516) and completed more passes (326) than in his first two seasons, and as a result there was some development even if it wasn't always apparent due to his other problems.

It wasn't a total loss in terms of development.

1. The Art of the Comeback

Any young quarterback must learn to rally a team and Trubisky last year picked up where he left off in the playoff game against the Eagles in this respect. He obviously couldn't complete all the comebacks, particularly twice against Green Bay. But he did lead three fourth-quarter comebacks. Only Russell Wilson, Josh Allen and Jimmy Garoppolo had more. He also had three game-winning drives to win the game in the fourth quarter or overtime, and only Russell Wilson, Deshaun Watson, Josh Allen, Carson Wentz, Ryan Fitzpatick and Jimmy Garoppolo had more last season. Trubisky would have had one more in both categories if Eddy Pineiro had merely made a 41-yard field goal against the Chargers.

Going forward, the Bears can be comfortable their quarterback is well-versed in trying to bring back the team from deficits and has had some success at it.

2. Avoiding Turnovers

Trubisky protected the ball better last season than in his first two seasons.

The five fumbles Trubisky had were the fewest of his career, and the 10 interceptions he threw meant 1.9% of his passes were interceptions. This was easily the lowest percentage of interceptions in his career.

It's not always natural growth for a quarterback to improve this way with more play. With young quarterbacks, this is always a big concern. It's even a concern with veterans. The prime example is Jameis Winston's 30 interceptions.

Baker Mayfield last year had more weapons than in his rookie year but threw seven more interceptions and his rate of interceptions rose from 2.9% to 3.9%.

3. Patience

Almost to a fault.  

Trubisky seemed at times to insist on staying within the pocket or floating outside of it while looking downfield for receivers far more often than he did during his first two seasons. During the first two seasons, he looked for receivers, then quickly took off downfield.

He summed this up at one point.

"The guys got to know that once I'm on the move I'm looking to pass first, I'm not looking to run," Trubisky said. "We have to do a better job on scrambling drill, getting open and just making the play."

Now, the benefit to the Bears offensively in the short term wasn't there. In fact, it hurt their chances. He ran for a career-low 193 yards, less than half his 421 yards of 2018. And he ran for a career-low 12 first downs after picking up 29 with his legs in 2018.

Without running to keep the chains moving, Trubisky needs more downfield completions or bigger gains with yards after the catch to avoid bogging down the offense. He needs more plays like the one against the Vikings in the season ender when he bought time moving to his right and found Riley Ridley for a short pass that was turned into a 32-yard gain to set up the win.

Up Next

The quality sticking out to be corrected most is Trubisky's ability to throw downfield. His yards per attempt have to go up closer to 8 when he's currently below 7. His overall accuracy hasn't been bad at 66.6% in 2018 and was still a healthy 63.2% during a season when so many things went wrong for him and the offense.  

It's this area he has to improve next, whether it's through better footwork, improved recognition of defenses, repetition of throws, or having a viable running attack to force defenses into playing more man to man coverage.

Unfortunately for the Bears, this is the area for a passer most reliant on natural talent, and most difficult to improve.

Twitter: BearDigest@BearsOnMaven