The Chicago Bears may be without Mitchell Trubisky again on Sunday when the team plays the New York Giants. With the season essentially lost, a not as noticeable mistake by Ryan Pace comes to the forefront.
The Chicago Bears have struggled all season. They are not a dominant team despite having one of the best defenses in the NFL. Once again, we find the team wasting a great defense by poor offensive execution. Plenty of blame can be passed around.
Matt Nagy has made some questionable play calls and even other coaching decisions. Mitchell Trubisky has been dreadfully awful most of the year. The kicking situation seems like it might be worse than the Cody Parkey debacle of 2018. The offensive line has been below average at best and not to mention the tight end position has been a joke outside of third-stringer Ben Braunecker. Crazy how quickly things can change.
With all of these issues on everyone’s mind, no one even seemed to question one other glaring mistake Ryan Pace made this season regarding the quarterback position. Mitchell Trubisky has already missed time this year and now his status is up in the air again after a hip pointer injury he sustained in the loss to the Rams.
Although signs are pointing to Trubisky playing, what if he cannot give it a go? We will be watching Chase Daniel try to lead a team that is all but mathematically out of the playoff hunt. Daniel is a solid backup quarterback who can come in and play with little to no notice. However, he is not the future. The Bears also have Tyler Bray sitting on the practice squad. Is he the future?
Bray is 27 years old. That is not old in quarterback years, but I would argue that it is old for a guy who has never played a full regular-season game to be considered “the future”. Some people want to see what he has and I am not opposed to that if Trubisky is not healthy. However, we need to pull back those expectations with Bray. He is not going to be the quarterback of 2020.
In fact, he will be lucky to be a backup opposed to a third-stringer before his career is over. The Bears signed him to a one-year deal for 2019. Clearly, they did not envision him being here long-term. Here is where Ryan Pace made his other mistake though with the quarterback position.
The team did not have many draft picks, I understand that. However, they took some late-round guys who are not contributing or on the team any longer. The Steelers just stole Kerrith Whyte off the practice squad. Stephen Denmark is on the practice squad. Riley Ridley has yet to see any action in a regular-season game. Things are not looking great for this draft class.
Instead of one of these guys, Ryan Pace and the Bears should have considered adding a guy like Tyree Jackson to their group of projects. He is now slated to play in the XFL but could have been the guy they played over Daniel at this point if Trubisky cannot play on Sunday.
Jackson was a project quarterback who was projected to be drafted between the fifth and seventh rounds. He went undrafted, but maybe the Bears should have given him a chance. Better yet, what if they drafted a guy like Gardner Minshew who has been playing fairly well for the Jaguars this season. Minshew went in the sixth round.
Other project names they could have brought in instead of Tyler Bray include Brett Rypien, Trace McSorley or Kyle Shurmur. The likelihood of one of these guys being “the guy” in 2020 is slim, but the league already knows who Tyler Bray is at this point. With one of these guys, there is at least that slim chance one of them excels and becomes the Bears future quarterback. This is why they need to add quarterbacks more often out of the draft.