NEWSLETTER
Whenever training for the 2020 NFL season actually begins, there will be an obsessive watch over the open quarterback competition on the Chicago Bears roster. And for what it’s worth, Head Coach Matt Nagy seems encouraged by how incumbent Mitch Trubisky is handling things.
Here’s the latest: “Mitch has been really, really good in all of our Zoom meetings. He’s in a really good place right now,” Nagy said in an interview with Steve Wyche of the NFL Network. “I just really appreciate the way he’s handled everything. That’s not easy. When we are real with this and we’re all human, it’s not easy. So he’s been tested, but he’s really looking forward to the challenge and he’s embracing the open, healthy competition part of that.”
Nagy is onto something here, as Trubisky will truly be battle tested by the time Week 1 of the 2020 NFL season rolls around. Think about what he’s will have gone through leading up to the 2020 season-opener. He will have gone from playoff-game starter and Pro Bowl alternate to man clutching to the remains of his football future in the matter of one football year. Much has happened in Trubisky’s football life since the end of the 2018 season, whether it will have a positive impact on his future remains to be seen.
One thing as important as Trubisky embracing competition is Nagy’s acknowledgement that the coaching will have a role in shaping what happens in the pending showdown.
“We’re going to have to be really efficient as coaches, in making sure that all the players understand the amount of competition that we have going on,” said Nagy.
Look … we can talk about how Trubisky needs to embrace this moment as an opportunity to rebound and rejuvenate his career until we’re blue in the face. And we might do just that, as it appears that we have ample time on our hands. But we also need to discuss how the coaching staff needs to go about it in the same way. Trubisky faltered last year, but so did the offense as a whole. Some of what happened last year can be attributed to play-calling, design, and execution. So while the execution part comes down to the players, the calls and design falls in the lap of the coaches.
Again, I find myself coming back to what was discussed in this morning’s Bullets regarding Anthony Miller’s tweet (about how Michael Jordan and the 1996 Bulls rebounded after being ousted in the 1995 playoffs). Sometimes, it takes getting jabbed to realize what’s at stake. Between Trubisky being pushed to the brink of losing his job and Nagy seeing the need to step his game up from a coaching standpoint, perhaps we’re seeing a realization from the two most important on-field figures in Chicago football.
For more from Nagy, check out the extended interview he did with Wyche in the tweet embedded below:
"He's embracing the open, healthy competition."@ChicagoBears head coach Matt Nagy joined @wyche89 to talk QB competition and the 2020 schedule! pic.twitter.com/llWircGo5n
— NFL Network (@nflnetwork) May 10, 2020
