There's Only One Way for Mitchell Trubisky to Win QB Job

Mitchell Trubisky won't be able to fall back on one of his greatest assets when he competes with Nick Foles for starting Bears quarterback and it's questionable whether he has the ability to win without it

Mitchell Trubisky has talked about the advantage he has over Nick Foles in their quarterback battle by knowing the Bears offense, while Foles hasn't even been able to work yet on the field with the team.

If rumors of a possible shortened NFL preseason schedule turn out to be true, Trubisky has an even bigger edge in this regard because coach Matt Nagy has already labeled these games critical in judging the competition.

"Like I said, preseason games, reps, playing more, creating more reps, having the ability to have both those quarterbacks play with the same wide receivers and tight ends against the same defenses, that's going to be important," Nagy told reporters earlier this month.

This doesn't necessarily mean Foles will lose the battle if the preseason gets whittled down to two games or three games.

Foles has one distinct edge in that he has worked already with three of the four members of the passing game brain trust: coach Matt Nagy, offensive coordinator Bill Lazor and quarterbacks coach John DeFilippo. The only one he hasn't worked with is passing game coordinator Dave Ragone.

Trubisky, meanwhile, has worked only with Ragone and Nagy.

So when decision-making time comes, Foles has an edge of sorts.

There is one other huge disadvantage Trubisky faces in trying to retain his spot and it's one he would find difficult to offset.

The one talent Trubisky has which Foles lacks is being able to run, to scramble or to carry out the zone read. The Bears have probably underused the zone read for various reasons, but Trubisky in 2018 made a huge difference in the offense by extending drives with his scrambling.

Last year Trubisky decided very early he would limit himself as a scrambler. The idea was to extend plays with his legs in the backfield until receivers got open downfield.

"I'm trying to be a pass-first guy, running when it's open," Trubisky said at the time.

The end result was the Bears had only 193 yards rushing on 48 attempts by Trubisky one year after he'd run it 20 more times and gained 228 more yards. He ran last year only for 12 first downs, 17 less than in 2018.

Extending drives by running it was huge for him because he lacked the ability to read defenses well enough to hurt opponents late on plays with his arm the way he hoped to do.

When coaches begin to judge the competition, practices will play a larger role than preseason games. 

There will be far more practice repetitions than there will be for preseason games whether they cut the number of preseason games or not.

In practice, coaches can load up or disguise defenses any way they want but it's rare when opponents in preseason games will do this for fear of tipping off something their regular-season opponents can see on tape and exploit. So coaches will get a much better idea of how either quarterback is faring from practice film than from preseason game film.

In practices, Trubisky is not scrambling anyway. He's not able to use his greatest strength. 

Trubisky is going to have to show he can beat out Foles by reading defenses and throwing.

He might be able to scramble occasionally in a preseason game, but even then it's not something coaches are taking into account. 

What they want to see from Trubisky is something else entirely and Nagy made this clear after last year, in addition to repeating it several times this offseason.

"So No. 1 is going to be—we talked about decision-making—but I want him to be a master at understanding coverages, you know?" Nagy said. 

You don't get to be a master of understanding coverages by scrambling for yardage.

The only way Trubisky wins this battle is with his arm, his eyes and his head.

In essence, he's going to have to beat Foles at Foles' own game.

Twitter: BearDigest@BearsOnMaven