NEWSLETTER
The Chicago Bears made a concentrated effort to build with and around Mitch Trubisky with wave after wave of offseason additions. From changing the head coach and offensive staff, to adding three starting-caliber receivers, a new tight end, and getting younger on the offensive line, everything was done with Trubisky in mind. HOWEVER, one NFL insider isn’t sold on the changes, or Trubisky, for that matter.
Trubisky lands in the lowest tier of quarterback rankings created by Jason La Canfora of CBS Sports. Joining Trubisky in this group are fellow NFL Draft Class of 2017 member Patrick Mahomes, as well as 2018 first-round pick Josh Allen. In short, this is a talented trio of quarterbacks with upside, but also a fair amount of uncertainty because of each player’s relative inexperience.
The seven tiers a quarterback can fall into on La Canfora’s scale are simple enough to describe. We have franchise quarterbacks, proven winners, rising stars, quarterbacks you can win with, veterans and place-holders, starters who leave you longing for more, and signal callers who still have work to do. Tier 7 is where La Canfora places quarterbacks for which “the verdict is still out.”
Once we get past the misnaming of the group – because while I’m no fancy big city lawyer, the verdict isn’t out … the turn of phrase is the jury is still out (or the verdict is in) – we can direct our attention to why and how Trubisky ends up here in the first place.
La Canfora offers up something of an explanation: “I’m not buying the hype that Trubisky – still very raw – is now suddenly plug and play with a rookie head coach who has barely called plays and a few new pieces around him. I gotta see that to believe it.”
Let the record show that being listed in Tier 7 isn’t some kind of death sentence. After all, Jared Goff was in this category last year before his breakout 2017. Then again, so was Paxton Lynch … who is now a non-factor in Denver.
