In his weekly press conference at Halas Hall, Chicago Bears quarterback Mitch Trubisky was asked to walk through his thought process regrading a 3rd-and-1 RPO that went wrong last Thursday night.
But after a brief pause, Trubisky offered this: “Nah. I was told not to talk about the last game. There’s a lot of decisions on each play. There’s like three or four plays built into one. Sometimes it’s the right decision. Sometimes it’s wrong. Sometimes I make the wrong decision, but I make it right with the way I execute it. But we’re moving onto this week.”
Well, that’s certainly an interesting statement. Not the part where Trubisky offers a brief glimpse into what is happening during a given RPO (which we will tackle later today), but rather the part where he said he was told not to talk about what happened in Week 1. When asked who gave him that direction, Trubisky mentioned the name of a team public relations staffer and said “others” had made the suggestion, too. It all just came off a little … odd.
And when it was brought to the attention of Bears Head Coach Matt Nagy, he tried to provide some clarity.
“I can tell you this, it didn’t come from me,” Nagy told reporters during his Thursday press conference. “What I’m trying to get to to is that the message within our building — not just to him, but to everybody — is we’re moving on, we’ve got to worry about what’s next …. He’s very honed into when he hears something, so to me, that’s how I took it. I think that the message that was portrayed to him is that we’re onto the next deal and it probably came out differently than he wanted.”
Nagy believes Trubisky’s words were taken the wrong way. He cited how the concept of “next play mentality” is continually drilled into Trubisky and how the quarterback goes out of his way to latch onto key phrases that are put into his lexicon. An example of this could be how Trubisky took Nagy’s “be obsessed” mantra to another level last season. Or how chasing greatness essentially pushed him to ensure he had an area to work on throws while he was on vacation.
After re-watching Trubisky’s press conference, two opposing lines of thinking came to mind when Trubisky uttered those words.
On one hand, it doesn’t seem like an ideal mindset to have in order to properly move away from an awful Week 1 showing. There is always something to be learned from discussing your short-comings, as there is value in learning from a loss. Take what you can from it, then move on having educated yourself on what not to repeat from the prior week.
On the other hand, there is nothing to be gained from dwelling on defeat. There is nothing that Trubisky could have said in his Wednesday press conference to change last Thursday’s result. Further, worrying too much about what happened last week could serve as a distraction and take away from what should be the primary focus — this week’s game against the Broncos.
Among the things that have stuck with me since the Bears’ season-opening loss to the Packers was this tweet from WGN Radio’s Adam Hoge, which brought to life Trubisky’s post-game mood:
Mitch Trubisky is as disappointed as I’ve seen him. “I definitely feel like I let my teammates down and the fans down with how I played.”
— Adam Hoge (@AdamHoge) September 6, 2019
In watching the press conference and listening to Trubisky’s words, I would say that is the most defeated the Bears’ starting quarterback has sounded since Week 7 of his rookie season, when he described his play as “really poor” and was his own harshest critic. We also know Trubisky is obsessive over … everything. Trubisky admitted to being “kind of OCD” in an offseason interview with Chicago magazine.
And before that, he pronounced an obsession over being great, took Nagy’s “Be Obsessed” mantra to another level last year, and carried that into offseason workouts. It could be counter-productive for an obsessive type to re-hash one of their worst games as a pro.
But still … I can understand where concern could set in from the outside. After all, it’s also apparently coming from the inside.
Trubisky has carried himself with confidence since the start of the Nagy regime. And the vibe was at an all-time high entering Week 1. Then the game happened, which re-opened questions, comments, and concerns regarding Trubisky in the big picture. But because what is in the past will remain there, the only way to move on is to be all-systems-go with eyes on next week’s opponent.
The Bears are on to Denver. And not only is Trubisky leading the way, he is doing so while trying to turn the page with a positive mindset:
.@Mtrubisky10: "We're positive around here." pic.twitter.com/fFJ3jer5Bi
— Chicago Bears (@ChicagoBears) September 11, 2019