NEWSLETTER
Mitch Trubisky doesn’t want to miss a second consecutive start. And why would he? The Chicago Bears are 7-3 when Trubisky starts and the second-year quarterback was on pace for a 3,900-yard, 32-touchdown season before he missed last Thursday’s game because of an injured throwing shoulder.
But there comes a point where a player needs to strikes a balance between what he wants and what would be right by the team. And while Head Coach Matt Nagy knows that, it still sounds like he doesn’t quite have a feel for whether Trubisky will be ready to play this week against the New York Giants.
“He’s doing well,” Nagy said of Trubisky in an appearance on NFL Network Ian Rapoport’s podcast. “He’s improving each day, which is important. He’s a tough kid, you know, and sometimes when you get in these types of situations, you need to make sure that he understands that we need to do what’s best not only for him, but for the team as well. He wants to be out there, but we need to make sure we’re doing the right thing and that he’s communicating to us how he fees.”
Therein lies the rub. Trubisky wants to play and probably thinks he is healthy enough to go. Often, the most hardened football players – whether you want to call them gritty, grinders, or whatever – are willing to downplay an injury for the sake of getting back out on the field and getting after it with their teammates. The problem is that sometimes, those injuries are actually serious and playing through them can hurt a team more than it can help it (both in the short and long term). Frankly, the last thing the Bears need is for a less-than-healthy Trubisky trying to play hero ball with a shoulder that isn’t 100 percent.
The Bears just went through this scenario with star pass-rusher Khalil Mack and wide receiver Allen Robinson. Both players missed two games nursing injuries that they probably wanted to play through – and might have in other situations – but didn’t take the field because the coaching and training staffs had the final say. Nagy mentioned the Mack and Robinson situations on the podcast, which could give us an inkling to what his line of thinking might be with Trubisky.
Chicago kept both players out of action for two games while their teammates picked up the slack in their absence. If the Bears could do that again and have Trubisky as a full-go against the Los Angeles Rams in primetime, then it would be a best of both worlds type of scenario.
Nagy is expected to speak today at Halas Hall, where he will hopefully shed some more light on the situation. In the mean time, check out Rapoport’s podcast below.
