At this time last week, Mitch Trubisky watched 2018 game film and found reasons to be confident. His home performance against the Lions last year was probably the best of his career — he went 23-for-30 for 355 yards, three touchdowns and a 148.6 passer rating.
This week’s opponent, too, gave him 2018 film to research. The Bears-Rams contest took place five weeks after that first Lions game — in Week 14 — but the result was different. The Rams forced Trubisky into, simply, the worst game of his career.
Returning from a shoulder injury, the Bears quarterback went 16-for-30 for 110 yards, one touchdown and three interceptions in, amazingly, a 15-6 win against the Rams. Trubisky’s 33.3 passer remains his lowest ever.
For all the talk in recent weeks about building up his confidence — from talking to old coaches to watching television tape to last year’s film — the fastest way for Trubisky to feel his best would be to beat the team that dominated him like no other.
Watching last year’s carnage prepares him for Sunday night’s game at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.
“Last year they kinda zoned us out and tried to keep everything in front, and kinda take away our big plays,” Trubisky said Wednesday. “So for us it’s just gonna be being good on first and second down, trying to establish drives, stay on the field.”
In a particularly dry press conference Wednesday — perhaps Trubisky was cognizant of last week’s television tempest — the quarterback used the phrase “do my job” four times.
“We’ve got to find ways to score more points,” he said. “They did a good job of keeping us out of the end zone and made us settle for some field goals last year, so we’d like to find ways to punch it in and when we get into the red zone, finish drives. So that’s gonna be the focus.”
Only four Rams defenders that started against the Bears last year were in the starting lineup Sunday against the Steelers — but Aaron Donald, the reigning NFC Defensive Player of the Year, is one of them. The Rams have added big-name veterans — outside linebacker Clay Matthews, safety Eric Weddle and cornerback Jalen Ramsey — to a unit they hoped could return them to the Super Bowl.
The defense has proven to be merely average, though: their 21.2 points per game allowed is tied for 15th in the league.
Still, they’re worlds better than the Lions. Sunday’s win — ugly though it may be against the league’s second-worst defense — was a weight off Trubisky’s shoulders.
“It did it for all of us,” Nagy said. ‘That’s why for all of us to kind of just feel, like, ‘O.K., we know there’s gonna be good wins, there’s gonna be sloppy wins. But in the end, when we all look back next year — we look back at that game — we’ll remember how it kinda went. But really in the end we got the win.’ And it feels good to get that win.
“Do we want to be better? Do we know that we have a lot higher grades and values for how we play? Yes. But I think all of us, including Mitch, feel a lot better. And the confidence definitely, certainly gets higher.”
The standard has been lowered, too. Nagy’s insistence that Trubisky played four quality quarters in Sunday’s win against the Lions— when the Bears punted nine times and scored three touchdowns — states as much.
Trubisky has a little bit of momentum, though, heading into this year’s Rams game.
“I think we’re not exactly where we want to be yet,” Trubisky said. “But a win definitely gives you confidence moving forward.”
