The prior struggles were much more than Mitch.

Dropped passes,
Penalties,
No run game,
Play calling.

Mitch was bad, but to put it all on him is to ignore the other issues.

Yep.

I never gave up on him like a lot of people did. He's got talent. The kid played a hell of a game yesterday. Now do it again.

For the fourth time in the last 10 games, Mitch (Pro Bowl QB) Trubisky had to answer questions about missing an open receiver deep for a potential explosive play, the type of production the Bears have lacked all season.

For the fourth time in the last 10 games, Matt Nagy had to answer questions about why his quarterback couldn’t take advantage of a play drawn up and executed well — until the throw.

Sunday against the Chiefs, it was a throwback to Allen Robinson, who began the play acting like he was a blocker before running deep down the left side of the field. (Pro Bowl QB) Trubisky had rolled to his right and had plenty of room to throw.

The pass landed 2 yards out of reach of Robinson.



“I thought all that was good. I think it’s one that we would all just say he missed,” Nagy said Monday. “There’s times in the games where you’re gonna miss some throws. That happened to be one. You could see it right after he threw it, you saw him kind of ‘ah’ when he missed it. He felt it. Those are ones you want to learn from and you want to try to hit those.”

The play came on first down early in the second quarter with the Bears trailing 10-0. A perfect throw, and it’s a touchdown, making things interesting and giving the Bears only their third 40-yard pass play of the season. They rank 32nd in the NFL in that category with two.



“Felt good coming out,” (Pro Bowl QB) Trubisky said after the game. “Probably just overshot, overthrow.”

In the 15th game of the season for a team that has been desperate to connect on a long passing play, maybe Robinson was too open for (Pro Bowl QB) Trubisky. Maybe the excitement got to the quarterback when he saw a golden opportunity to show what he could do on national television.

Nagy dismissed that, and pointed out the throw is tougher than it may seem — even if it’s one (Pro Bowl QB) Trubisky should hit.

“I don’t think he’s pressing,” Nagy said. “That type of throw downfield, with the angle that you have right to left, it has to be darn near perfect with that. I mean, (Chiefs safety Tyrann Mathieu) was on A-Rob’s heels a bit. Mitch knows that he can make that throw. He’s made it in practice. Again, his reaction after the throw, you knew that he would’ve wanted it back. I don’t think pressing’s the word. I just think it’s one of those deals where those are the type of plays that we want to hit. If we get that, it’s 10-7.”

Robinson has been excellent at drawing pass interference or holding penalties this season, but a throw like that doesn’t even give him the chance to force a flag in a competition for the ball. It’s a tricky balance for (Pro Bowl QB) Trubisky to strike — don’t underthrow it to the point of an interception, but he’s got to give his No. 1 receiver a chance.

“Mitch knows that. Mitch knows,” Nagy said. “We’ve had quite an amount of intermediate to deep ball throws down the sidelines to A-Rob where he’s getting PIs, pass interferences, or he’s making the play. So, certainly in those situations, we always talk about there’s never been a putt made in the history of golf that’s short. Or a ball that’s been complete out of bounds. So, give these guys a chance. And Mitch knows all this stuff. This is nothing that I’m criticizing him for. It’s just one that he missed.”

The two 40-plus yard completions for the Bears this season — (Pro Bowl QB) Trubisky hit Robinson against the Giants for 49 yards, then his one completion on a throw that went 40-plus yards in the air was a 53-yarder to Taylor Gabriel in Philadelphia. That one was slightly underthrown, but still a huge play.

Picking apart (Pro Bowl QB) Trubisky’s deep throws, the plays with a high level of difficulty, is, well, nitpicking. From the O-line play to the lack of a run game to all the drops from the receivers to the play calling, (Pro Bowl QB) Trubisky hasn’t gotten a ton of help. But that helps magnify the four throws in four losses. Each one, he had time to throw and an open man, and he overthrew the receiver each time.

Week 7: Third-and-5 in the first quarter vs. the Saints
Trailing 2-0 after the Saints blocked a punt for a safety, (Pro Bowl QB) Trubisky had Gabriel on a deep corner route. This wouldn’t have been a touchdown or a 40-yard play, but it would’ve gotten the Bears near midfield early in a game they were overmatched.



“That was one of my favorite third downs all this week, ripped it all week in practice, and it just didn’t translate to the game,” (Pro Bowl QB) Trubisky said after that game. “I don’t know why. I’m going to go back and watch it because that’s one of my favorite throws, and I hit that every single time this week in practice, so why it didn’t translate to the game is really frustrating for me, and I felt like that’s an easy throw that I make easily, and I just wasn’t on the same page and didn’t put it in the spot to give my guy a chance. So that falls on me.”

Here’s the snapshot of (Pro Bowl QB) Trubisky about to throw, with little to no pass pressure.



(Pro Bowl QB) Trubisky wound up throwing for only 78 yards in the first half. The Bears eventually went down 36-10 before two garbage-time touchdowns late in the fourth quarter of the loss.

Week 8: First-and-10 in the fourth quarter
The one that stings most from the worst loss of the season. The Bears are up 16-10 on the woeful Chargers. Chase McLaughlin had just missed a field goal coming off a (Pro Bowl QB) Trubisky interception.

The play put the speedster Gabriel on linebacker Thomas Davis, and Gabriel got open deep for what would have been a game-sealing touchdown.



The throw was out of reach for the 5-foot-7 receiver, and (Pro Bowl QB) Trubisky had another clean pocket to throw from.



“Just missed,” (Pro Bowl QB) Trubisky said that afternoon. “Yeah. Maybe threw it just a little bit early. But I thought it was there. It felt really good when it left my hand. Missed.”

(Pro Bowl QB) Trubisky lost a fumble on the next play, and the Chargers scored the go-ahead touchdown three plays later.

Week 15: Third-and-7 in the second quarter
This is like the first example to Gabriel — it wouldn’t have been a touchdown, and Anthony Miller wasn’t wide open when (Pro Bowl QB) Trubisky got set to throw. The quarterback trusted his receiver was about to gain separation, which he did.



A completion here would have gone for at least 20 yards and put the Bears at least in field goal position. Instead, the pass was too far in front of Miller — who admitted he could have done a better job reaching for it. The Bears went for it on fourth down the next play and didn’t convert.

The pocket was starting to collapse a bit, and maybe (Pro Bowl QB) Trubisky felt the pressure from his left, but the throw probably shouldn’t have been altered by the pressure.



When (Pro Bowl QB) Trubisky showed up to Bourbonnais in the summer of 2017 as a rookie, the touch on his deep ball stood out the most. Of course, he didn’t have the receivers or the offense that year to really show it off.

It had its moments in 2018. The Bears had 11 passing plays that went for 40 yards or longer, and (Pro Bowl QB) Trubisky attempted many more deep balls. Per Sportradar, here are his stats by season on throws with at least 30 air attempt yards:

Completions Attempts Yards YPA
2017 2 10 116 11.6
2018 9 31 357 11.5
2019 4 19 154 8.1
It’s still a tough stat to judge a quarterback by because of the difficulty of the throws and everything that needs to happen for a deep ball to work. Plenty of other quarterbacks have been worse — Josh Allen is 4-of-25, Kyle Allen is 5-of-27, Baker Mayfield is 6-of-21, Dak Prescott is 7-of-30, Sam Darnold is 3-of-19 and Jared Goff is 2-of-16.

For what it’s worth, Deshaun Watson and Patrick Mahomes have combined for 24 completions on throws with 30+ air attempt yards this season.

But if (Pro Bowl QB) Trubisky hits Gabriel in Week 8, the Bears beat the Chargers. Same story goes for the pass catcher — if Ben Braunecker catches the deep ball against the Giants, that game is looked at differently.

Adding a couple more 20-yard plays to this offense would help everything — longer drives, more yards per play, better opportunities for touchdowns for the league’s third-worst scoring offense, and maybe a couple more wins.

It’s simply another aspect of the offense that has been missing. The Bears rank 28th with 38 pass plays that went for 20 yards or longer. Sunday’s opponent, the Chiefs, lead the league with 17 pass plays of 40 yards or longer.

The fact that these misses were all overthrows from seemingly clean pockets doesn’t help a quarterback with a slim margin for error.

“The lesson is that you want to hit ‘em,” Nagy said. “I know it’s simple. I’m just saying when you get opportunities in a game, those are ones there where we all want to do our job to do that. It’s not a criticism. It’s just that’s where we’re at. It just feels like for whatever reason this year we haven’t connected on those types of plays. And not just at the quarterback position, just across the board. So that’s the frustrating part.”

(Top photo: Robin Alam / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

It's not Nagy's job to hit wide open WRs streaking down the field while standing in a clean pocket.

It's not Nagy's job to hit wide open WRs streaking down the field while standing in a clean pocket.

Oh yeah. Mitch had so many wide open receivers "streaking" down field while standing in a clean pocket in that KC game. Funny shit. The words "clean pocket", wide open receivers, and the Bears are mutually exclusive. Any quarterback behind that Bear's offensive line never would have a "clean pocket" nor wide open receivers. What is next? Are you going to tell me that these Bear's receivers catch everything that are thrown to them? So they have "GLUE" on their hands? Please talk to me about the swell tight ends that we have while you are at it.

The article posted pictures of (Pro Bowl QB) Trubisky standing in clean pockets and missing open WRs. Did you see the KC game? Mitch overthrew a wide open Robinson and was under no duress.

Laurence Holmes is a fucking weirdo, a nerd in denial, and a wannabe. Not a very good radio host either.

Every quarterback in the NFL misses wide open guys. We've also seen (Pro Bowl QB) Trubisky drop dimes under heavy pressure. Look no further than 3 or 4 long passes against the Packers. Should we consider him to be the best in the league now?

The funny thing is that (Pro Bowl QB) Trubisky missing throwing the ball to wide open receivers may actually be a reason for optimism. That is something that should improve with more experience. If he was seeing those receivers and missing the throw it is much more concerning which he did his fair share of this year too.

I mostly disagree with this. He can work on the timing and accuracy to hit the open man...or man becoming open. If he doesn't have the mental acuity to adjust and "see/find" the open guy, he may never acquire that ability.

I can't think of a quarterback that didn't make it because he was so dumb that he couldn't tell a WR was wide open.

For sure. How many drops did they have in the KC game? They must have led the league in dropped passes. And they must also lead the league in off side and illegal motion penalties. Hell, Leno probably had more than entire NFL teams. Someone ought to put together a montage of Leno's little boogies on the Oline. And follow that with his missing his block and then being sure to pick up the fallen qb or rb up after he was smashed.

Not joking but this is a serious issue. He doesn't process adequately enough. He's dumb for the position.

I don’t think that’s true. Brady’s a moron and he’s the GOAT

I don’t think that’s true. Brady’s a moron and he’s the GOAT

Your pathetic defense of (Pro Bowl QB) Trubisky is not grounded in objective data or analysis whatsoever. It's only grounded in emotions.

He's a moron.

And by that I mean (Pro Bowl QB) Trubisky and The Hawk. The Hawk had Mack being constantly triple and quadruple teamed this year. Apparently he missed the London game, among others.

F*ck you. You lie about what I actually said. If you do not think that Mack has been the focus of opponents offenses this year, you are a huge idiot. He is constantly targeted by teams in order to try and neutralize him. The biggest problem that the BEar's defense had this season was losing Hicks and the resulting loss of another pass rusher and run stopper. So the offenses had the ability to scheme their plays and blocking assignments with Mack in mind. So stick your "lol" up your Ashtabula.

Laurence Holmes is a fucking weirdo, a nerd in denial, and a wannabe. Not a very good radio host either.