Mitchell Trubisky will be the Chicago Bears starting quarterback when the rival from the Windy City visit Ford Field in Week 1. The Bears bequeathing the starting job once again to Trubisky, at least against Detroit, is both a blessing for the Lions but also a potential curse.
Most of the football world expected free agent Nick Foles to resoundingly beat out Trubisky when the Bears signed Foles this offseason. Trubisky’s struggles are well-chronicled: his iffy accuracy, his frazzled pocket presence, the legend of his inability to throw to the left. The fact that Foles didn’t beat out Trubisky after the Bears opted to decline the fifth-year option on the youngster’s contract is widely viewed as an indictment of Foles and not a feather in Trubisky’s cap.
Yet for all the joyous reactions from Lions fans, there is a curious fact with Trubisky against Detroit. He’s been great in his matchups with the Lions under Matt Patricia. And that should scare Lions fans more than it excites them.
Trubisky’s last three starts against Detroit, all with Patricia as the coach:
Week 10, 2018: 23-for-30, 355 yards, 3 TDs, 0 INTs, 148.8 QB Rating and he also ran for a TD in Chicago’s 34-22 win at Soldier Field
Week 10, 2019: 16-for-23, 173 yards, 3 TDs, 0 INTs, 131.0 QB Rating in Chicago’s 20-13 home win
Week 13, 2019: 29-for-38, 338 yards, 3 TDs, 1 INT, 118.1 QB Rating in the Bears 24-20 comeback win at Ford Field on Thanksgiving
The two matchups last year were the two highest QB Ratings Trubisky recorded while going 8-7 as the Bears’ starter in 2019.
While he’s been generally ineffective against the rest of the NFL, Trubisky has proven to be a massive problem for the Patricia-era Lions. He went 0-2 against Jim Caldwell’s team in 2017, Trubisky’s rookie season, but he’s looked like Steve Young reincarnate against Patricia’s passive defenses.
All the Lions’ joy, all the optimism, all the Honolulu Blue Kool-Aid being gulped for the season is instantly trashed and burned if Trubisky does his magic once again in Detroit in Week 1. If the revamped, new-look Lions defense falls flat against arguably the worst QB on the entire season schedule in Week 1, the “Same Old Lions” switch is going to get flipped on mighty early in 2020.
I’d have rather faced Foles…the guy who wasn’t better than Trubisky all summer.
