Bears coach Matt Nagy was watching the same quarterback as the rest of us did Sunday. He just sees Mitch Trubisky through a different lens.
To some, every game is a referendum on the second-year quarterback. What Trubisky did against the Patriots is who he is. And two touchdown passes, two interceptions, completing 52 percent of his passes, some questionable decisions and a 69.8 passer rating obviously won’t cut it.
To Nagy, everything Trubisky does — good and bad — is part of the developmental process. The off-target throws, bad decisions and missed opportunities are filed away for future reference.
The question isn’t whether Trubisky is good or bad. It’s whether he’s learning. A self-proclaimed “rep person,” Trubisky thrives on experience. Failure is just as valuable — maybe even more valuable — than success.
That’s the best explanation for why Nagy doubled down on his assertion that Trubisky’s uneven-at-best performance in the 38-31 loss to the Patriots still was a step forward for Trubisky, who completed 26 of 50 passes for 333 yards, two touchdowns and two interceptions and added 81 yards and a touchdown on six carries. Nagy sees the quarterback in the context of the entire offense, and both have a long way to go.
“Going back and watching tape, he played as I thought. He played better than most people think he played,” Nagy said Monday. “Early in the game, there were some throws that look like he missed them, but he missed them because the [receiver] isn’t open and it’s more of a throwaway.
“That’s where, to an outsider, it looks like he’s inaccurate when really he’s just trying to get the ball away because [the receivers] weren’t winning outside. Our offense understands that. Our guys know it. They understand that we’ve got to play better.
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“Mitch also understands that he gets all the blame in those situations. He’ll also be the first to tell you — and so will I — that there were a few he wishes he had back, downfield throws. He’s gotta hit those. He knows that. We know that.”
Trubisky’s ill-advised pass to tackle-eligible Bradley Sowell in the corner of the end zone on first-and-goal from the two-yard line in the second quarter — with Patriots linebacker Elandon Roberts dropping an interception — was one of those plays that left fans and analysts shaking their heads.
Nagy called it “a critical error you cannot do,” but the botched play also was a matter of guard Kyle Long missing a block on Danny Shelton, whose immediate pressure forced Trubisky into the bad decision — and arguably a matter of Nagy getting a little too cute near the goal line. Jordan Howard scored up the middle on the next play.
“That’s a play where you expect them to play a little bit more run and they didn’t,” Nagy said of the pass to Sowell. “So that’s a play where they got us. As a quarterback, that was a bad play call. So don’t make a bad play worse, let’s go to second down.”
It’s all good if Trubisky learns from his mistakes.
“When you have a leader such as Tom [Brady] running the show, he makes everybody better,” Nagy said. “For Mitch, it’s good to see that and to understand it — that we just keep pushing along, staying positive.
“I’m happy where this offense is. We can better. You’ve got to be prepared to have peaks and valleys. We’re in a valley right now. So we have to get out of the valley, and that’s by having good people that work hard together, stay positive and just continue working hard.”
