I have felt sorry for tourists walking our streets the last three-plus months. There they’ve been, minding their own business, enjoying the sights, when complete strangers from Chicago have stopped them and asked them why Bears quarterback Mitch Trubisky wasn’t running the ball more.
Of course, they didn’t know the answer because none of us knew the answer, but those visitors to our city were serving a very important purpose. They were acting as emotional-support friends. Pack mules for our frustrations. We thank them.
On Thursday night, without warning, Trubisky started running with the football. It was as if a switch had been flipped. I don’t know if it was flipped inside the head of coach Matt Nagy, who hasn’t had his quarterback run this season. I don’t know if a switch was flipped inside Trubisky’s head. I don’t know if Trubisky had been more injured than we knew this season, preventing him from running with the ball. I don’t know if he was suddenly healed on a mild night at Soldier Field.
I just know that he ran Thursday night. And it made all the difference in the Bears’ 31-24 victory over Dallas.
Trubisky finished with 10 rushes for 63 yards. In his previous 11 games this season, he had a combined 26 carries for 80 yards. Cowboys defenders who had to be alert for a Mitch run started giving too much cushion to receivers. The result was a victory, singular, and questions, plural.
Where was this earlier in the season? Why hadn’t Trubisky’s running been part of the Bears’ attack? Would their season have gone another direction if his running had been an element all along?
So many questions.
“I would continually go back to it’s not just one person, it’s everybody,’’ Nagy said of Trubisky’s running. “When you have . . . everybody working together in unison, whether it’s the offensive line blocking, pass-protecting, run-blocking, wide receivers getting open, running the right routes, it makes your job as a quarterback a lot easier. But Mitch knows that, throughout the season, he could have played better, too.’’
This game had been sold as a kind of referendum on Trubisky, as if his mediocrity to this point in his career hadn’t meant anything. The Cowboys certainly were better than some of the bad teams the Bears have been playing lately — the Lions (twice) and Giants. On paper, Dallas looked better than the teams Trubisky had gotten full on statistically.
His running made the Cowboys’ defense look very much like the Lions’ defense. After throwing a very bad interception in the first quarter, one that sailed about five yards over the head of intended receiver Javon Wims, Trubisky led the Bears to 24 straight points over four straight possessions — three touchdown passes and an Eddy Pineiro field goal.
He finished 23-for-31 for 244 yards and a 115.5 passer rating.
But that running. Not Lamar Jackson-like, but 2018 Mitch-like, which is to say, more than good enough.
Where was that running earlier this season? This was all you were going to get out of Trubisky on the subject after the game:
“Taking what the defense gives me. Just doing my part.’’
It can’t be overemphasized: His running had Dallas on the heels of its cowboy spikes all night. On the second play of the Bears’ first drive, he scrambled for five yards. Several plays later, he ran for 13 yards. A tone had been set. The Cowboys might want to watch out for the quarterback running the ball. OK, then came the bad interception. What, you thought that part of Mitch’s game was going to disappear because he had rediscovered his legs? No.
But it certainly gave him more open targets. Asking Trubisky to consistently throw precise passes is asking for trouble. It’s not that he can’t throw on a dime — he did that on his first touchdown pass, a five-yard toss to Allen Robinson. It’s that he can’t do it consistently.
Two plays summed up Trubisky’s night perfectly. In the fourth quarter, he threw a pass that should have been intercepted. Instead, Robinson somehow came down with the ball for a 22-yard gain. On the next play, Trubisky ran up the middle for 23 yards and the touchdown.
The offense hasn’t looked this explosive all season. If the Bears were honest, they’d admit that their offense has looked sickly most of the year.
Before the game, their chances of making the playoffs were as thin as a pencil mustache. Little has changed in that regard. They’re 7-6.
But forget about that. If you’re going to concentrate on something, let it be the Bears’ new-look offense. There hasn’t been much good to build on this season, no matter how much Nagy has said there was. Let’s see if the Bears continue to play well against the remaining teams on their schedule, the big boys — the Packers, Chiefs and Vikings.
An easier schedule last season made the Bears look better than they were, and a tougher schedule this season has made them look worse than they are. But there has been one constant: Trubisky’s commonplaceness. Until Thursday night.
Does running raise his game and improve his chances of remaining the Bears’ starting quarterback?
A better question, for now: Where was this Trubisky earlier in the season?
