It was an interesting twist to a compelling story: Bears coach Matt Nagy showed his team the Saints’ winning rally against the Texans in Week 1 — Drew Brees driving his team 35 yards in six plays in the final 37 seconds for Will Lutz’s 58-yard walk-off field goal — and the Bears copied it with a similar last-minute drive for Eddy Piñeiro’s 53-yard field goal that beat the Broncos last week.
But maybe Nagy should have backed up the tape a bit. If there was anything about that episode the Bears need to emulate, it’s the two pinpoint throws by Deshaun Watson to give the Texans a touchdown that put the Saints in that predicament to begin with. Down six points with no time outs and 50 seconds left from his own 25, Watson needed just two plays and 13 seconds to score — a perfect 38-yard pass to DeAndre Hopkins over Marshon Lattimore down the left sideline; and a dart to Kenny Stills over the middle for a 37-yard touchdown that gave the Texans the lead with 37 seconds left.
Get a quarterback who can make those throws and, with the defense that Nagy has at his disposal, he’ll rarely have to depend on one-second-and-the-ball to save the day.
No matter how much the Bears focus on the kicker, it always comes back to the quarterback. As the Bears’ deliberate, step-by-step development of assembly-required Mitch Trubisky proceeds, plug-and-play quarterbacks like Watson and the Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes provide evidence of how arduous the Trubisky process does not have to be.
And just when you come to grips with the idea that Mahomes is a special guy the Bears — and others — missed, another example pops up. Jaguars rookie Gardner Minshew, a sixth-round draft pick, threw two touchdown passes without an interception in a 20-7 victory over the Titans on Thursday night. In three games in place of injured starter Nick Foles, Minshew is completing 73.9 percent of his passes, with five touchdowns to one interception for a 110.6 rating.
Minshew’s staying power remains to be seen. But just the immediate short-term success is notable. If a rookie who was a back-up throughout the preseason can come in cold and play with that efficiency, what’s taking Trubisky so long?
“Instant gratification — the world we’re in right now,” Nagy said. “We brought Gardner in [during the draft process]. We got to [see] the type of person he is; he’s very, very smart. He’s a competitor and it doesn’t surprise me the success he’s having.
“With that said, every scenario is different for every quarterback. There are some soon-to-be Hall of Fame quarterbacks — and one in particular, that [in] Year 2 with a particular coach, after four games had one touchdown, nine interceptions a [57.4] rating and [63] percent completion percentage — and is now about to be an instant Hall of Fame quarterback.”
The quarterback is the Saints’ Drew Brees, who indeed struggled in his second year in Sean Payton’s offense in 2007. Brees, though, had a much stronger foundation — in his first year with Payton in 2006, he was the runner-up to Chargers running back LaDainian Tomlinson for the NFL’s MVP award when he led the NFL with 4,418 passing yards.
But even if it’s cherry-picking, the general point is a fair one. Some quarterbacks take time. In his first six seasons as a starter, Brees’ career passer rating was 87.9 — ranking 24th, 28th, third, 10th, third and 11th in that span. His Hall of Fame career didn’t really take off until 2008, when he was 29.
“I understand everyone wants it now, now, now. I get it,” Nagy said. “So I need to make sure that I pull back, stay patient with our offense and who we are, because there’s a lot of evidence out there of this [developmental rate] goes on, where the story’s a really good ending.”
The Bears’ game against the Redskins on Monday night at FedEx Field is where it has to start. Trubisky’s first two duds can be rationalized to a degree. He had not thrown a pass in the preseason going into the opener; and he was going against Vic Fangio, who knows him better than any opponent in the league, in Week 2. The Packers and Broncos could end up being two of the better defenses in the NFL this season. And Nagy’s game plans haven’t helped — he is 0-2 in his matchups against Mike Pettine and Fangio. He needs to be better as well.
Now it’s up to Trubisky to live up to Nagy’s belief in him.
“We see it every day in practice. We see what’s there,” Nagy said. “We know what we’ve done the last two games, that’s not what we want to be at all. But there’s patience involved in that and there’s zero panic. Do we want to be better in Week 1 and Week 2? Yes. What are the reasons for that? That’s our job to figure out those solutions. That’s why we have 16 games, is to figure that out.”
With this defense, Trubisky doesn’t have to be Patrick Mahomes to take the Bears to the playoffs or the Big Game. But is it too much to ask him to be Gardner Minshew? It’s a fair question, but Nagy doesn’t allow himself to be affected by what other quarterbacks are doing. That could be a chatter that becomes more and more difficult to ignore.
“It doesn’t [complicate matters], because there’s been a lot of good classes that have ended up being great classes,” Nagy said. “It doesn’t shock me with Kansas City and what’s going on there with coach [Andy] Reid and Patrick. And then you talk about a guy like Deshaun Watson and what they’re doing in Houston.
“But I remember specifically dealing with all three of those quarterbacks [in the 2017 draft] — them talking about wanting to be the best quarterback class ever. But that doesn’t happen in 2-3 years. They’re all going to have their highs and lows. We need to face that.
“We understand that we want to make it happen as fast as possible. But there has to be a little patience involved. As much as people don’t want to hear that, that’s what’s real. And that’s the hardest part for everybody. It’s hard for us — we want it now, too. It’s our job to figure out solutions. And that’s what we need to do.”
