ALL ON THE LINE
The perfect way to end — or extend — Mitch Trubisky’s time in Chicago is a Bears-Packers game at Soldier Field
The Bears can punch a ticket to the playoffs with a win, while the Packers look to claim the NFC’s top seed.
Mitch Trubisky has carried the hopes, frustrations and joys of Chicago Bears fans for most of the last four years. That includes 50 starts, 26 games at Soldier Field, 29 victories, 21 losses, one losing season, one winning season, one 8-8 season, one division championship, one painful playoff loss and one big, season-ending TBD for the Bears quarterback.
Soldier Field will be empty of those fans Sunday when Trubisky takes the field for the Bears’ win-and-they’re-in game against the Green Bay Packers, but in separate living rooms across Chicago, many will share the same thought.
Has it come down to this?
The No. 2 pick in 2017 — the one that repeatedly has been scrutinized and debated and second-guessed for four years — might be playing his last game in a Bears uniform after the team declined his fifth-year option in May. Or maybe not. Maybe there’s more to come. Perhaps the Bears will clinch a playoff spot with a victory over the Packers or an Arizona Cardinals loss to the Los Angeles Rams and will advance to play another week. Perhaps Trubisky’s surprising late-season surge has been enough to convince the Bears — and Trubisky — that there’s more for him in Chicago despite their rocky marriage over the last year.
The uncertainty adds layers of meaning to an already huge game. But when Trubisky takes the field Sunday, he vows not to contemplate it all.
“I won’t be thinking about that, no,” Trubisky said Wednesday. “I’ll be locked in and ready to go for the game. I’m excited about that opportunity.”
That seems like a weighty task, pushing aside all that has happened to him over the last year— and all that’s riding on this game— and focusing on the moment.
YetTrubisky has done it more than once in this bizarre season, winning the training camp quarterback competition after the Bears traded for Nick Foles and then coming back two months after being benched for Foles and playing one of the best stretches of his career.
“Everything I’ve experienced this season has justmademe stronger and a better person and player,” Trubisky said. “Just what I’ve had to deal with and everything we’ve hadto overcomeas a team, to just see wherewe’re atnow, it gives youconfidence going into it.
“You now realize that all the distractions and everything you have to deal with throughout the season and playing a season within a pandemic, it does make you mentally stronger as a person. And you’re able to deal with a lot more. And now we have a great opportunity in front of us.”
‘He’s having fun’
Passing game coordinator Dave Ragone has been with Trubisky for all four of his NFL seasons, and the most satisfying part forhimover the lastmonthhas been seeing Trubisky smile.
“The joy with which he’s playing,” Ragone said. “He has been different since he came back into the starting lineup. He has carried himself differently. You can see it in practice. … He’s having fun. And he’s even playing through his mistakes. You can feel it. He’s not letting that linger on to the next play. And more importantly, the confidence he’s showing, his teammates are feeding off it.”
In the five games since taking over for Foles inWeek 12, Trubisky has completed 115 of 169 passes (68.1%) for 1,243 yards with 10 touchdowns, four interceptions and a 99.3 passer rating. He also has 10 sacks, 80 rushing yards and a 6-yard touchdown run in that span.
Take out the first game in that stretch against thePackers, andthis is the first time in his career Trubisky has had a streak of four straight games with a passer rating of 97.7 or higher. He also has a completion percentage of 68% or greater in four straight games for the second time in his career.
Yes, the performances have been against four losing teams, but the Bears aren’t going to brush off four straight outbursts of 30 points or more — the first such stretch for the team since 1965.
Several factors have played into the surge, including an updated offensive scheme and increased communication among coach Matt Nagy, offensive coordinator Bill Lazor and Trubisky about what plays he’s most comfortable running. Second-year running back David Montgomery has had the best stretch of his career. And Trubisky credited the play of the offensive line, with the Bears finally finding a combination thatworks.
And then there’s Trubisky, who has moved past one challenge after another to put together this season-ending stretch, all while knowing his future options — whether with the Bears or in free agency— will be heavily influenced based on howhe finishes this season.
In the spring, he became “pissed off in a goodway” when the Bears first signaled to him that he no longer had their trust and that his future in the organization was in doubt. They traded a fourth-round draft pick for Foles, taking on $21 million guaranteed, and then declined Trubisky’s option.
When Trubisky was awarded the starting job and then was benched 2½ games later for poor play, it “felt like a blind side.” But he eventually collected himself and figured out how to push himself as the backup — overcoming a right shoulder injury along the way — so that when the
Bears decided to go back to him, he was more prepared.
“For him to be able to persevere through that is certainly not easy,” Nagy said. “But he’s been able to show his teammates that he’s a team-first guy. He didn’t complain when we went with Nick. All he did was stay locked in, and he was a greatteam mate on the sideline for Nick. … He didn’t go the other way. He stayed positive. He stayed humble. He stayed aggressive. Butnowhe’s playing at a high level, andwe’ve just got to keep it going.”
To keep it going Sunday will be one of Trubisky’s biggest challenges yet.
‘Staying in the moment’
When contemplating what it might mean for Trubisky to help the Bears beat the Packers on Sunday, Ragone thought back to the only playoff game Trubisky has played in — the 16-15 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles on Jan. 6, 2019, that crushed Super Bowl hopes in front of a packed Soldier Field.
While the Bears offense didn’t score enough early in thegame, Trubisky led two fourth-quarter scoring drives and set up the Bears to kick the potential winning field goal in the final minute. Ragone wondered what might have happened if Cody Parkey’s kick had gone through the uprights rather than double-doinking, if the perception or trajectory of Trubisky’s careerwould have changed at all.
It’s an exercise in imagination now, but Ragone noted thewayTrubisky has at least allowed himself an opportunity for a new big moment to alter his story.
“He has shown resiliency,” Ragone said. “He has shown a no-quit (attitude), a fight that a lot of us who are close to him know that he has. … And what a great opportunity, a great challenge.
“This is what you dream about as a quarterback ever since youwere a little kid. Especially when you’re playing for the Chicago Bears— you get to play the Green BayPackers for a chanceandan opportunity to continue your season. I don’t know that you can draw it up much better, to be honest.”
Indeed, it seems like a fittingway to end — or extend— Trubisky’s time in Chicago.
Trubisky’s 1-5 record against thePackers has included one of the highest highs and one of the lowest lows of his career. In December 2018, the Bears clinched the NFC North title behind Trubisky’s 235 passing yards and two touchdowns in a 24-17 victory over the Packers. Less than nine months later, the Bears opened the NFL’s 100th season with adud— a 10-3 loss to the Packers that included a fourthquarter Trubisky interception and foreshadowed the troubles they would have in 2019.
The last meeting, a 41-25 loss Nov. 29, was Trubisky’s first game back as Bears starter, so this one will be a chance to prove the progress over the last month isn’t a mirage.
And it will be an opportunity to showhe can play within himself with the weight of the past and the future hanging over him. Trubisky can draw on his experiences in those big games to help him this time.
“In a game specifically like this, wewant to start fast, but to do that, you’ve got to have all of your emotions in check,” Trubisky said. “You’ve got to know what your job is and go out there and execute it and trust the guys next to you. But if your emotions aren’t in check and you’re too excited, that’s when maybe sometimes bad things can happen.
“It will be a little different, obviously not having fans. We wish we could have them at Soldier Field, but we’ve been able to handle that all season long. Sojustknowing what’s at stake, staying focused and staying in the moment is going to help us.”
The fans, of course, will be itching to find out what it all means — just from a little farther away than theywere in his last big moment.