Is Mitchell Trubisky Mentally Fit to Be a Pro QB?

Although the 2018 season didn’t end the way that they wanted, fans of the Chicago Bears had many reasons to be excited for 2019. The Bears had arguably the best defense in the league, they had a rookie head coach who was named NFL Coach of the Year, and it seemed that the Windy City was finally getting the franchise quarterback which has been highly sought after for decades. Fast forward to the middle of the 2019 season—things aren’t looking that great.

The defense isn’t playing at the high level that they were last year, but they are still one of the best units in the league. As for the coach, Matt Nagy’s decision-making has left many scratching their heads, wondering if his success with the Bears in 2018 was a fluke. However, the biggest thing that’s getting attention is the play of Mitchell Trubisky.

The second-overall pick of the 2017 NFL Draft has made an about-face from his 2018 Pro Bowl season. In the six full games that he’s played this year (not counting the Week 4 game when he was injured in the first quarter), Trubisky has averaged only 202.8 passing yards per game, and has just five touchdown passes. To go along with his putrid stats, the three-year veteran has been inaccurate with his passes, and has not been a picture of confidence.

Things have gotten so bad for Trubisky, that he has recently went to the media stating that he has requested that the TVs at Halas Hall (the Bears’ practice facility) be turned off so that everyone’s criticism about the underachieving Bears won’t be a distraction.

Is this a sign of Trubisky really starting to crack under the pressure? Was mentioning this for the entire football world to hear a smart move? Well, if you ask me, I’d say yes, and no. Yes, it is a sign of the pressure actually getting to Trubisky. And no, it wasn’t a smart decision to go public with this request.

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Most would agree that the quarterback position is the most important position in all of sports. Not only is the quarterback a leader of many people on the field, but the quarterback is also is a leader off the field. Furthermore, the way the quarterback carries themselves is a reflection of their team.

With that being said, we don’t know if Trubisky’s comment was something that the entire team had mutual feelings about or not. But at the same time, no one else on the team has come forward to back him up. So the assumption can be made that Trubisky is the lone wolf on this one.

Having all of this come to the surface at such a critical point in the Bears’ season, we have to wonder if Trubsiky is mentally strong enough to even be a quarterback in the NFL. I’m not saying that he isn’t completely mentally strong enough, but it does look like that arrow is starting to point in that direction.

Being scrutinized comes with the territory of being an NFL quarterback. And while playing such a position on a team who had high expectations in one of the most popular cities in the United States, that scrutiny is going to be magnified greatly.

Trubisky’s play on the field this year is worth of the criticism in which it’s receiving. Even the great quarterbacks in NFL history have been bombarded with the same arrows Trubisky is getting hit with. But fighting through those rough patches and finding a way to win is what made those quarterbacks great.

In order to get out of this rut, Trubisky can’t just act like he doesn’t hear this criticism, and ignoring it won’t make it magically go away. Because if he doesn’t hear it on the TV, he’ll hear it from the fans in his home stadium—and there’s no way to turn that off.

So, Bear Nation, do you think Trubisky is mentally strong enough to be an NFL quarterback?