National Post (National Edition)
Bears opt for Glennon over top rookie
Big-ticket free agent makes club’s choice easy
Rookie Mitchell Trubisky is soaked with NFL-calibre throwing talent, no question. He is not soaked with prostyle passing-game knowledge.
He’s still pretty dry in that area, in fact.
So believe this. Mike Glennon is the Chicago Bears’ starting quarterback for 2017. If not beyond.
That much has been made clear, five days into Bears training camp at Olivet Nazarene University, a quaint Catholic school nestled amid flat Upper Midwestern farmlands, about an hour’s drive south of Chicago.
There had been speculation Trubisky, whom the Bears traded up on Day 1 of April’s NFL draft to select No. 2 overall, would push the fifth-year veteran Glennon in spring practices, to start, and here in training camp in earnest. Uh, no. At Monday’s unpadded practice Trubisky still was repping with third-stringers, as he goes through the slow, difficult process of grasping all the complex concepts of pocket-mandatory pro-football quarterbacking, after shining in a simpler spread system in one glistening year of starting at the University of North Carolina.
You might have heard that Trubisky bobbled three of his first six snaps in team drills at Saturday’s first padded practice of training camp, so unfamiliar is he with the most rudimentary task of pro-style quarterbacking.
He’s just not ready. Glennon is.
There is no Bears quarterback controversy, period. And probably won’t be all season.
Even journeyman Mark Sanchez, brought in as mere backup insurance, is more ready to play right now than Trubisky. That’s why Sanchez is still repping with the second-team offence.
If watching a cool, confident Glennon lead firststringers in 11-on-11 reps at Monday’s practice wasn’t convincing evidence enough, you just had to listen to Bears quarterbacks coach Dave Ragone afterward discuss particulars.
Asked specifically what Glennon has done to take ownership of the quarterback position, Ragone said:
“I think you see it, obviously, in the open practices. What he’s done, what he tries to do — just like the other quarterbacks — when he’s in the huddle. Obviously he’s trying to have command and be concise, and when he gets to the line of scrimmage he’s trying to make sure that he’s done a good job with his pre-snap mechanics in terms of communication.
“And the more he feels comfortable doing that, the leadership role for him as the starting quarterback starts to elevate. And for the guys around him, that’s a big deal. That’s what (all the quarterbacks) are trying to do every single snap — to go up there, have conviction and have command with every play that’s called.”
In short, the nearly 6-foot-7 Glennon is leading. He knows the playbook cold, gets the team into the right play and blocking assignments, pre-snap, based on the defence he sees. Then he, most often of the four Bears quarterbacks, makes the correct progression reads and throws after getting the ball.
And his teammates and coaches all know this.
“Mike’s a meticulous guy,” Ragone said. “He wants to do everything right. He works on his individual parts of his game. He takes those things very seriously, and it brings out the best of everybody in that room.”
Asked if Glennon is doing anything he and the Bears hadn’t known about before he signed with the Bears in March for US$45 million over three years, with US$18.5 million guaranteed, Ragone couldn’t name one.
“There was homework done, it’s a small league,” Ragone said. “In terms of what Glennon has brought to the table, it’s what’s been said of him. He’s a professional. It means a lot to him, just as it does for those other three quarterbacks in the room. And he’s one in the room who’s the catalyst. The (other quarterbacks are) pushing him, and he wants to be pushed — in the meeting rooms and on the field.”
Perhaps Glennon’s finest throws on a hot, partly cloudy afternoon came in the final 11-on-11 drill, in the red zone. Glennon ripped an impressive slant to tight end Dion Sims, and on the next snap floated a well-executed fade into the corner of the end zone to wideout Kendall Wright, but Wright lost the ball when he hit the turf.
This is what the Bears — and their impatient fans — hoped to get out of Glennon, who appears the ultimate, unlikely cream of a sad 2013 quarterback draft crop.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers selected Glennon in the third round, 73rd overall. Only two quarterbacks were taken ahead of him, both flops: EJ Manuel by Buffalo in the first round, and Geno Smith by the New York Jets in the second.
In his first two seasons with the Bucs, Glennon played in 19 games and started 18, winning only five. Still, without much surrounding talent Glennon threw 29 touchdown passes against 15 interceptions. Not bad.
He barely played in Tampa over the past two seasons as 2015 No. 1 overall draft pick Jameis Winston took over the starting reins.
Ragone was polite about it, but kept listing things Trubisky must learn and master. For instance, what has the 22-year-old learned so far in camp?
“It’s been a continuation of what spring was,” Ragone said. “And what spring was, was getting him as comfortable as possible in the huddle, at the line of scrimmage, each day, each play.
“We measure each quarterback by how he operates in the huddle, first; at the line of scrimmage, second; and then when the ball is snapped. And so we kind of go through that process … we see what the comfort level is, and what we have to work on in individual drills. And that goes for every quarterback, not just Mitchell.”
And those pre-snap difficulties?
“That’s one of the things,” Ragone said. “That is, to make sure he feels comfortable with the play call in the huddle once he breaks. Then he needs to do a great job of understanding what the defence is trying to do, presnap. Seeing his coverage tips. And the processing of all that, pre-snap. It allows him to get an edge, post-snap.”
Ragone said he and offensive coordinator Dowell Loggains try to “clean that clutter up, make it simple” to try to give Trubisky a post-snap advantage.
Does that sound like a QB who’s ready to play? No, it doesn’t.