Hot Take Tuesday: The Incoherent Rantings of a Belligerent Bears fan.
I am confused. I feel like a lost soul roaming the wilderness. How could it be? Mitch Trubisky debuted and the Chicago Bears still lost? Impossible! The Bears were on their way to a 13-3 record and a Super Bowl appearance. Mitch was here! The man that was going to fix it all couldn’t fix it. I’m confused. What happened?
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If you paid attention to Bears twitter lately, you would have thought that the only thing wrong with this team was Mike Glennon. You also would have thought that Mitch Trubisky was going to take the field wearing an Iron Man suit and lead the Bears to an 84-0 whooping of the Minnesota Vikings. But somehow that didn’t happen. In fact, when the Bears needed late game heroics from the savior rookie, Mitch threw an interception and that was all the Vikings needed to cement the win.
Does that mean I’m blaming this loss on Mitch Trubisky? Far from it! I loved what I saw in the kid, and we will dive into that in a minute. What it does show is that this team was not a Mitch Trubisky away from being 11-5, they are a work in progress, one I’m not giving up on yet, well not entirely.
Before I dive into the team, let me first say something to the lovely officiating crew: the game is not about you! Holy crap swallow a whistle and have a little clue about how to call a game! I will never blame a loss on officials, if the officials make a bad call that puts you behind the 8-ball, that’s on you for not having control of a home game in the first place. But I must say, the calls on Monday night were atrocious. The refs had no feel for the key moments of the game and had countless calls that were minor if not nonexistent that never should have been called. In short, they mauled the game. I felt more bad calls went against the Bears, but there were bad calls on both sides. It was a horrendously called football game, to the point that, being it was on national television, actually gave the NFL a black eye. Perhaps a minor one compared to the other crap they pull, but it was awful to watch.
As for the game, let me take aim at the coaching staff. First of all, I’ve had enough of Vic Fangio. I know he’s revered in Bears’ circles, but I can’t dedicate enough space to dive into Vic’s shortcomings so I will save that for later in the week. But speaking of Fangio, I want this whole coaching staff gone. I’m tired of hearing about what Dowell Loggains can do as OC if he has the right pieces. John Fox is the complete wrong man for this job, and Fangio can go with them. The Bears need a fresh set of eyes on this roster next year and they need the right person to work with Mitch and help him become a top-tier QB.
The fact that this coaching staff is still here is Marc Trestman’s fault as odd as that sounds. They were bad enough that they all should have been fired last year and a fresh coaching staff should have started with Trubisky in year one. But thanks to the piss poor effort from Trestman, the Bears had to eat two years of his contract. There was zero chance that the Bears were going to pay two head coaches four years in a row. And before you call the Bears cheap, no franchise would. But because of Trestman’s ineptitude, we get another year of John Fox- whoopie.
Finally, let’s talk about Trubisky. There was so much to like. Now, when you watch a ’77 Buick with a rusted out frame, mismatched doors and missing bumper drive around and then someone gives you a ’99 Honda Accord, or are going to think you have a Porsche. That seems basically what it was like going from Mike Glennon to Mitch Trubisky. Is Trubisky a Honda or a Porsche? That’s way too early to tell, but we certainly know he’s not the hooptie that Mike Glennon was.
Chicago Bears
Trubisky was fun to watch, not that he lit it up for 300 yards and 3 TDs, his final line wasn’t anything special, in fact, it was pretty bad, but watching the potential was definitely fun.
First, his athleticism was obvious from the start. He has an ease about him with which he can get outside the tackles. He took off on a couple of occasions that shows while he won’t be the type of QB that racks up 700 rushing yards in a season, he will absolutely be able to make plays with his feet and run for first downs when needed.
Second, his pocket awareness is great for a rookie. On only one play was he completely lost that the pressure was coming from his blindside. Every other time he felt the pressure, moved accordingly, and bought himself more time to throw. The Vikings have themselves some very good edge rushers and they only netted one sack against the rookie.
Finally, let’s look at the arm. It may not be a Jay Cutler arm, but it’s a very good arm. He throws tremendously well on the run and demonstrated that in the first half, for some reason the Bears went away from that even though the Vikings showed no adjustment to actually stop that aspect of Trubisky’s game. He also made some seriously NFL- caliber throws. The deep throw down the sideline to Tre McBride was a thing of beauty. The sideline throw to Markus Wheaton where Wheaton failed to get both feet in would have been caught by a more talented receiver. He made a couple electric throws to Zach Miller.
The talent is there with Trubisky. Now he needs to put it together, be better coached, and have the GM get him a few weapons.
Quick Hits
- Hot Take Tuesday on a Wednesday? Well, since the Bears played on Monday evening technically, it’s Tuesday when you think of… just shut up.
- Akiem Hicks is headed to the Pro Bowl. It’s just a question if he will be All-Pro this year.
- I am just about ready to give up on Jonathan Bullard. I don’t think he gets what it takes to be successful at this level and I don’t think he will.
- Vic Fangio’s defense cannot function without quality ILBs. Let’s hope Nick Kwiatkoski gets back soon to pair with Danny Trevathan.
- The Bears wide receivers suck.
- Someone needs to tell Tarik Cohen he isn’t going to gain 30 yards every play. Sometimes you need to stop dancing and gain three yards rather than losing two.
- Kyle Fuller is continuing to play solid football. This is not a typo.
- Cody Whitehair has regressed. He’s not nearly as aggressive at the point of attack this year. I don’t know why he’s becoming tentative but it needs to stop.