The competitor in Mitch Trubisky was upset when the Bears agreed to trade a fourth-round pick to the Jaguars in March and guaranteed Nick Foles $21 million to try to take his starting job.
“I think I was kind of pissed off — in a good way,” Trubisky said. “I’ve been motivated ever since.”
The realist in him wasn’t surprised, though. Nor was he shocked, two months later, when the Bears declined the fifth-year option that would have paid him $23.9 million in 2021. The team called Trubisky three days before the news was made public to tell him his tenure with the team would depend on how he plays this year.
“It wasn’t really a big surprise to me, because I kind of felt like I had it coming,” Trubisky said Friday via video chat, his first interview with reporters since Dec. 29. “I put myself in their shoes — if I was looking at myself, I feel like I would have to go out and earn that fifth option, and I feel like the way I played last year didn’t merit that. …
“I think it’s just more fuel to the fire to me, more motivation that I could have done more to get extended.”
One year removed from going to the Pro Bowl as an alternate, Trubisky finished 28th in the NFL in passer rating and 32nd in yards per passing attempt last season. His status as the team’s quarterback of the future evaporated over 15 starts. It’s now fair to wonder whether Trubisky will start another game for the Bears, who have declared an open competition between he and Foles.
“My plan is just to go out there and earn my next contract, wherever that is,” Trubisky said. “I want it to be here in Chicago. I’m going to play my heart and soul out for this team and give it everything I’ve got. So I’m just excited to get back on the field with my teammates and get back to work.”
The Bears haven’t been able to practice all offseason because of the league-wide coronavirus shutdown. Trubisky said that small sample-size gives him the initial edge over Foles, given that he’s run Nagy’s offense the last two years. But he knows that won’t mean much the minute the Bears report for training camp in late July.
“At the end of the day, it comes down to on-field performance,” he said. “I think we both know that, the coaches know that and our teammates know that. When it comes down to getting on the field in training camp and competing against our defense, we just want to go out there and be a better offense. ….
“Whatever the sample size is, the on-field performance in practices, preseason games, whatever capacity that is, I think will determine it.”
Trubsiky has been holding throwing sessions with receiver Allen Robinson, running back Tarik Cohen and others the past few weeks. Organizing the outings provides insight into his leadership — he said he still thinks of the Bears as “my team” — but practice performance has never been an issue for the quarterback. Translating it to Sundays has.
That’s what will make the Bears’ quarterback competition so compelling, particularly if the NFL truncates the preseason schedule: the team has praised Trubisky’s practice play for years, only to see him fizzle in games. Will they trust his practice performances as an indicator of any real progress this year?
Foles and Trubisky, when they first spoke, agreed that they’d work together to make the Bears’ quarterback room as strong as it could be. Their relationship has grown from there.
“But there also comes the competition side of it,” Trubisky said. “And I want to win this competition and I want to be the guy out on the field leading this team.”
Trubisky spent his video chat sitting in front a poster spelling out former President Theodore Roosevelt’s “The Man in the Arena” speech, which starts thusly: “It’s not the critic who counts.”
For someone who’s spent the offseason under scrutiny — him being drafted after Patrick Mahomes and Deshaun Watson has become even more of a punch line — the message wasn’t subtle.
Trubisky’s most notable critic this offseason, though, might have been his own head coach. Matt Nagy said in December he wanted Trubisky to be “a master at understanding coverages.” In February, he said Trubisky needed to spend the offseason studying the playbook so he knew it better than his coach did.
Trubisky has watched every snap from the last two seasons over the past few months. He compared the throws he made then with what Nagy wanted him to do.
“He challenged me in that, and I fully accepted it — as well as knowing the offense really, really well,” he said. “I’m just watching a lot of film and studying it like the back of my hand. I’m excited to be a lot better in that area this year.”
That reading defenses and studying film was even a question is an indictment of Trubisky, who’s entering his fourth season. The quarterback blamed last year’s offensive struggles on two things: health and a lack of attention to detail.
Trubisky was an offender in both categories. He partially tore the labrum in his left shoulder in Week 4, necessitating a harness for the rest of the season and surgery when it was completed.
“I felt like we lacked details overall on offense — myself included, especially,” he said. “If we’re on top of those this year and we just hold each other accountable to the standard we know we’re capable of, then we’ll have a lot more success and win more games.”
Trubisky knows he’ll be judged by actions, not what he says while sitting between a computer screen and a motivational poster in June.
“It’s good to be pissed off a little bit,” Trubisky said. “It’s good to have that motivation.
“I think everyone on our team should be, by the way we performed last year … [It’s] one thing to talk about it. We’ve gotta go out and do it. We’ve gotta do it with our actions and we’ve gotta back up the talk with our play and make it translate to the field.”
