Most of the blame for the Chicago Bears’ failed season has been placed on quarterback Mitchell Trubisky. However, Mitch is not the one who should be taking all of the fall for the Bears’ demise and here are four reasons why.
1.) Matt Nagy’s Play Calling Was Questionable
Nagy’s play calling abilities started to come into question when people noticed he was not running the ball enough. He was further scrutinized for this when the Bears played the Chargers because Nagy elected to take a knee on first down to have kicker, Eddy Pineiro, attempt what would have been a game winning field goal, at 41 yards, instead of trying to advance the ball for a closer kick.
Dan Orlovsky describes the problem with not running the ball in the video below.
Along with the play calling, the video discusses another problem with the Bears. The defense.
2.) The Bears Defense Did Not Show Up
The Bears defense was supposed to be one of the best defenses in the league, being stacked up with players like Khalil Mack, Akeim Hicks, and Eddie Jackson.
Unfortunately, Akeim Hicks suffered an elbow injury in week 5 against the Raiders so he could not contribute much to the defense this past season.
Khalil Mack and Eddie Jackson severely under performed, adding to defensive problems.
Khalil Mack was traded to the Bears in 2018, and his deal with the Bears made him the highest paid defensive player in history. With a deal like that, it would be expected that Mack would carry the defense, but this was not the case.
Fellow linebacker Nick Kwiatkoski, who only started half the season, put up better comparable stats than Mack and other linebackers who were both drafted and paid higher than Kwiatkoski.
For the 2019 season, Kwiatkoski had 76 tackles (56 were solo), 1 interception, and 1 safety.
In comparison, Mack only had 47 tackles (40 were solo) with no interceptions.
When it comes to Eddie Jackson, he had 1/3rd of takeaways compared to last season, and last season he was even able to take the ball back for 2 defensive touchdowns- something he could not accomplish this season.
Although many experts grade the Bears defense highly, the fact is this defense did not perform well enough to secure wins. They did not do as much or as well as they did last year, but people are ignoring this to keep Mitch at complete fault.
3.) The Bears Offense is Underwhelming
Although Nagy did not let them run the ball often, when they did, it was awful (mostly when Cohen ran the ball). Along with this, the Bears offense had the most dropped passes in the league (thanks to Miller and Gabriel).
Tarik Cohen said in a recent interview that Trubisky received a lot of the blame when he shouldn’t have, because the offense did mess up and drop a lot of passes. He has faith in his QB as should others.
4.) The Offensive Line Does NOT Do Their Job
How many times did the offensive line let players freely sprint at Trubisky? Too many to count. The OL did not give Trubskiy the time to make moves.
The OL made it even harder for the Bears offense by being unable to block for the run or pass.
The plague of injuries for the offensive line certainly did not help them. Neither did their new coach for the 2019 season, Harry Hiestand, as he was fired when their season concluded.
Another key component to the failure of the OL is Charles Leno Jr. Leno committed 12 penalties, totaling a loss of 99 yards.
Trubisky Is Not Perfect But…
Can Mitch Trubisky improve? Absolutely. He is still under his rookie contract and has tons of potential if the Bears can improve as a whole. Mitch can throw beautiful rockets, he excels at rushing (when hes allowed to), and extends plays very well. He can make something out of nothing- like he almost did last minute against the Packers.
It is the trend right now to hate on Trubisky, but he still has people in his corner, rooting for him, and rightfully so, because he is doing what he can under the circumstances given to him.
Go Mitch. Go Bears.
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