With the Chicago Bears declining the fifth-year option for QB Mitch Trubisky, the team has made it clear that his time as “the future” in Chicago is over.
In some respects, you have to feel really bad for Mitchell Trubisky right now. Once thought of as the future quarterback who would carry the Chicago Bears back to glory, that time now seems to have run its course.
According to NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero, the Bears have declined their fifth-year option for Trubisky, essentially bringing “the future” to a close in the Windy City. The Bears had nothing but nice things to say about Trubisky’s attitude ever since the team made a confusing move to bring in Nick Foles and his terrible contract, but that in itself says a lot about what the Bears think about the quarterback they once placed all their hopes on.
It’s an admission from the Bears front office that they made a bad mistake making Trubisky “the future” to begin with, and it’s even more atrocious that they’ve now come to this conclusion long after their fans have. See, this is why we can’t discount fan opinions, because sometimes — okay, a lot of the time — the fans have a better clue about what’s ailing their team than the folks who are paid the big bucks to build the product on the field.
This is not to say that Trubisky is a bad quarterback. He does have career stats of 8,554 passing yards and 48 touchdowns thrown against 29 interceptions. That’s good for an 85.8 QB rating. However, he just wasn’t the right fit for a Bears team that has its hopes set on being competitive now, and for the team to achieve its full potential, it needs a quarterback who can be more than a game manager. Bears fans rightfully saw that Trubisky wasn’t a franchise quarterback, and now, the front office has seen it as well.
Look, it isn’t easy to admit your faults in judgment, so it must have not been easy for the Bears to come to this conclusion. They pinned a lot of their hopes on Trubisky developing into a franchise-defining quarterback, but Trubisky’s game isn’t built to be another Aaron Rodgers or Tom Brady.
He’s a glorified game manager, and for what the Bears are trying to build, Trubisky was no longer a fit in the Windy City. The fifth-option decline now signals that this will most likely be Nick Foles’ team. Whether that is a good idea in and of itself, given his disastrous one season in Jacksonville, remains to be seen.
What’s clear right now is that after being patient, Trubisky is no longer part of the Bears’ future. As the old saying goes — better late than never.