Mitch Trubisky travels through the league with surprise on his side — 20 of his 29 career starts have come against teams that had never faced him in person.
Then there are the Vikings. Sunday will mark Trubisky’s fifth career game against them, the most of any other team in the league. He’s faced only three other teams more than once.
The Vikings’ Mike Zimmer is one of two active head coaches that have faced Trubisky more than once in the regular season. The 49ers’ Kyle Shanahan coached against him twice, while Zimmer will join the Five Timers Club on Sunday.
Does that give one side of the ball an advantage? Coach Matt Nagy said, perhaps wishfully, that it was probably a push.
“It’s interesting to see, ‘How do they see him,’” Nagy said. “And how does the quarterback see the defense?”
In a year in which each game feels like a referendum on Trubisky’s young career, watching how the quarterback fares against the team that knows him best will be another crucial data point. In Week 2, Trubisky struggled against the defensive coach that best knew him: Vic Fangio, with whom he shared an office build the past two years.
“We’ve gone against this defense and we know who they are as players, and they’re a very talented defense,” Trubisky said “But at the same time they know themselves and they have a lot of experience playing together as well.
“So I think it kind of just goes both ways, and it comes down to execution in the game,” Trubisky said. “Can we tire them down, can we wear them down and can we play four quarters of good solid football?”
They’ve have yet to do that this season, though Monday night’s offensive performance — in which the team scored 31 points and Trubisky posted a 116.5 passer rating — was a marked improvement over the first two weeks.
The offense is still searching for his identity, though. Asked whether the Bears were close to getting the offense rolling, tight end Trey Burton was blunt.
“I’m not sure,” he said. “I would like it to be now. You never know when things are going to click.”
The Bears will plan to put Trubisky in the best position to succeed — but also to show the Vikings something they haven’t seen before.
“You’ve just got to look at what’s worked in the past and what hasn’t, and kind of just adjust and go from there,” Trubisky said. “And just have a couple wrinkles that they won’t be ready for.”
Trubisky is 2-2 in his career against the Vikings, with both victories coming last year. He made his NFL debut against them in Week 5 of 2017.
In four games, he’s thrown only two touchdowns and three interceptions, averaged 158.5 passing yards per game and has a 69.0 passer rating against them.
“I guess the good thing and the bad thing is it’s a lot of same guys, so you know exactly who those guys are,” offensive coordinator Mark Helfrich said. “And then the bad thing is, it’s those same guys.”
The Vikings are more diverse in their personnel packages this year, but the Bears will still see a steady diet of Vikings stars.
Both the defensive-minded Zimmer and coordinator George Edwards have been with the franchise for the past six years. Of the 11 starters in the team’s base defense, eight have started for the Vikings for at least the past three years. Four can claim at least six season as a starter there, while safety Harrison Smith is starting for the eighth-straight year.
“That alone makes you a good defense,” Burton said. “Add the freaks that they have on the D-line and Harrison Smith and the linebackers, it just makes them that good.”
