Even Coaches At North Carolina Weren't Buying Mitch Trubisky

The 2017 draft truly is the gift that keeps on giving for Chicago Bears fans. That is if you replace the word "gift" with "pain." Everybody knows the story. GM Ryan Pace bucked the mainstream opinions to trade up for Mitch Trubisky over future stars Patrick Mahomes and Deshaun Watson. Now Trubisky is on the bench three games into his third season. It's left people asking the obvious question. What in the world was Pace thinking? Details have continued to emerge since then. The latest coming from an excellent in-depth piece courtesy of Kalyn Kahler of Bleacher Report. She revealed tons of amazing nuggets. Included was the Bears actually telling Mahomes he was their #1 rated QB and also how several within the organization did not know nor agree with the Trubisky pick than Pace let on. It gets better (or worse) though. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJcESIhBr-8&t=5s&ab_channel=BuckledTonight

Mitch Trubisky had doubters even at North Carolina

One of the persistent concerns a lot of draft evaluators had back in 2017 was how Trubisky failed to crack the starting lineup sooner than he did. For two years he was trapped on the bench behind established starter Marquise Williams. A player most saw as inferior in terms of talent. Kahler spoke to a scout who had the same concern. So he reached out to a friend on the North Carolina coaching staff.

"He was laughing, and he said something like, 'The guys just played for Marquise,'" the scout recalled. "He wasn't knowingly taking a shot at Trubisky, but I took a mental note that there is something missing with this guy. There is no way talent-wise that Trubisky shouldn't have been playing. And Marquise Williams kept him on the bench?" "The Williams kid had the heart of the locker room and the pulse," the scout whose team drafted a QB that year remembered learning from his research on Trubisky. "The players rallied around him, which is part of the reason why he started those years over Mitch."

The general consensus? Trubisky lacked the "it" factor.

For a long time, people have remained somewhat confused on what "it" actually is. Dr. Patty Tublin wrote a great article for the Huffington Post. She called it executive presence. "People with executive presence exhibit confidence, competence, poise, effective communication skills and the ability to remain calm in the eye of the storm." Over the past three seasons, it's become obvious that Trubisky sometimes lacks a number of those traits. He worked hard on his leadership. Teammates always liked him. Still, it became clear that his confidence was often too easily shaken and his competence for grasping NFL schemes was subpar. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3D8XmT6wUw&ab_channel=Mikerophone

The "It" factor. Looking back at the 2017 draft and considering why so many player evaluators are saying today that the Bears' mistake was obvious back then, the "It" factor is what they say Watson and Mahomes had that Trubisky did not. "Mahomes had a swagger confidence to him. Deshaun was kind of almost how Russell Wilson was, like this guy makes you feel something when you're talking to him," said the former AFC scout, echoing other sources. What about Trubisky? "You just didn't get this feeling of a leader of men, a guy that just stood up and looked you in the eye. It's hard to put an actual word to it."

That was pretty much summed up in Atlanta. People who watched the game saw an immediate difference between Trubisky and Nick Foles. Players seemed to get a jolt of energy when Foles walked on the field. He commanded the huddle and threw with confidence. Nothing the Falcons did surprised him. It seems the UNC coaches saw those troubling signs with Mitch Trubisky even back then. Nobody was going to come right out and say it though.