Chicago Bears: Expectations For Mitchell Trubisky In 2019

Improve deep passing

If you watched Trubisky at all last year, you shouldn’t have questions about his arm strength. He’s no Patrick Mahomes, but he generates more than enough zip to get the ball downfield and into tight windows.

So why did he miss so many of his targets down the field in 2018?

Trubisky completed just 38.5 percent of his throws longer than 20 yards last season and got picked off on more than eight percent of those throws. Those numbers came along with the fact that he threw more deep balls than anyone but Josh Allen in 2018. That’s…not great.

He has the physical ability to make those throws, and he showed off a good number of deep completions last year.

The problem is lack of consistency with his mechanics and mis-calibrating his throws.

Especially when missing deep to the left, Trubisky’s footwork was to blame. In particular, he’d miss high sometimes because he tried to muscle the ball down the field while fading away from his target rather than planting his back foot and stepping forward.

He also had two other unfortunate tendencies on deep balls: first, throwing too late, and then, partly to make up for waiting too long, throwing the ball too much on a line rather than putting air under it and letting his receiver run under it.

That often forced him to try and be “too” perfect with his throws to beat coverage. These types of mechanical and mental mistakes often resulted in an incomplete pass or interception thrown into traffic.

The big key here? Experience, both in this offense and on the field generally.

Trubisky will benefit from another year in this system as well as just knowing better where his receivers will be and what their strengths are. Plus, he has continually proven he gets better the more repetitions and drills he gets.

The more he practices these skills and remembers his fundamentals, the better he’ll get. And that will mean even bigger numbers for Mitchell Trubisky and the Chicago Bears in 2019.