Well, it wasn’t a great press day for Bears GM Ryan Pace, given that he was ranked dead last in a recent set of NFL GM rankings just before his organization, as a whole, was identified among the worst prepared during contract negotiations.
But it’s not gonna be all bad, because his young quarterback, Mitch Trubisky – drafted second overall almost exactly a year ago – had some very positive and promising things to say about how the new coaching staff surrounding him:
Mitch Trubisky talked today at Halas Hall. Said “I feel like these last three days I’ve been coached more than I ever have” because he is surrounded by “a bunch of brilliant offensive minds.” pic.twitter.com/vzNdo805UF
— Colleen Kane (@ChiTribKane) April 19, 2018
According to Colleen Kane, Trubisky said he’s been coached more in the past three days of minicamp than he has for his entire career, because of the “brilliant offensive minds,” on hand. That’s awesome … and a little telling.
As we all well know, Pace decided to get rid of the old-school, defensively-minded head coach, John Fox (as well as Offensive Coordinator Dowell Loggains), this past offseason, replacing them with a more modern, more aggressive, and, most importantly, more offensively-minded head coach in Matt Nagy and OC Mark Helfrich. And the change in philosophy was readily apparent.
Just the other day, Nagy explained how he’d be taking a different approach with Trubisky, than the one he was probably used to under Fox. “What I don’t want him to do is I don’t want him to be thinking too much, at all,” Nagy said on Wednesday. “Go out and just let the thing rip. Just let it go, make the throws,” Nagy continued. “We call it card throws. If you’re in practice, you’re a scout team quarterback, and you just throw and you really don’t care, you’re just throwing it on time – anticipation throws – that’s what I want from him right now is to do that.”
Last season, Trubisky wasn’t asked to throw often, and when he was allowed to ‘let the thing rip,’ the throws were often short and safe. That sort of conservative style of play might’ve kept him safe and ran a low risk of meltdowns, it just wasn’t conducive to the sort of learning experience Trubisky desperately needed.
Perhaps that’s why after just three days of Chicago Bears Minicamp with a new coaching staff in place, Trubisky feels like he’s never gotten this much coaching in his life.
Later in the week, we’ll dive further into the rest of Trubisky’s comments, but for now, I wanted to get that in front of you. The 2017 No. 2 overall pick is digging his new support system, and that’s VERY good news.