The Chicago Bears have done just about everything in their power to help make Mitch Trubisky a success. They've devoted millions of dollars and high draft choices towards improving the offensive personnel. They fired their original head coach and replaced him with Matt Nagy, a former quarterback who comes from the most proven coaching tree in the NFL. Yet the 25-year old remains surrounded by doubts that he can ever live up to being the #2 pick in the NFL draft.
At this point, those who still hold out hope for him encourage the team to give him a little push. Find somebody on the market who can come in and act as competition for the starting job. Let him know that the incubation period is over. It's time to play like a franchise quarterback. He'll respond well to it. He's a competitor after all.
Except there is already evidence that Trubisky, for all his talent, doesn't always deliver his best when fighting for a job. People so easily forget his story from his days at North Carolina and a quarterback competition that came to define his entire college legacy.
Mitch Trubisky blew his chance to become an early starter
Most people these days don't remember the name Marquise Williams. This is because he isn't even in the NFL. Instead, he's trying to win a starting job in the new XFL. So how was it that a guy who became an undrafted free agent and never took a meaningful snap in the big league held off a future #2 pick for two years? That is a question people still can't answer.
For their part, the North Carolina coaches explained it was mostly Williams' steadiness and experience that kept him at the job.
“That success we had as a team with Marquise made it hard for us to pull him out of the lineup,” Keith Heckendorf said. “And I think if (Williams’ success in 2013) hadn’t happened, there may be a completely different conversation. It was not for a lack of talent, it was not because he wasn’t capable, but it’s hard to take a guy who had the success — not only as the team winning but individually — as Marquise had and put him on the bench for an unproven commodity.”
Is it really that simple?
It's hard to believe that. In 2014, the Tarheels went a pedestrian 6-7 with Williams under center. He had some really good games but stumbled towards the end of the year with an ugly performance against North Carolina State and a loss to Rutgers. So one can say the door was open for Trubisky to seize the job in 2015.
He failed.
Williams staved off his attempts and remained firmly in control for that season. Only after he graduated did Trubisky take over. He had a good year in 2016 and that was enough to thrust him to the top of the draft, but at the cost of precious experience. Experience he could've gotten had he better seized his opportunity the year before.
Does this doom him outright? Of course not. That said, it's hard to feel like Trubisky is the kind of guy who will suddenly transform into what he should be if threatened.
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