The Bears won't be repeating as NFC North champions in 2019. The continued poor play of quarterback Mitchell Trubisky in his third NFL season guarantees that.
Chicago fell to 3-3 with Sunday's 36-25 post-bye home loss to New Orleans in game that wasn't as close as the score indicated. Trubisky and the Bears' offense did little until two garbage-time fourth-quarter drives after being down 26 points with 4:33 left to play.
Even with late inflated numbers (251 yards, two TDs), Trubisky was highly inefficient (4.6 yards per attempt, 86.3 passer rating). The Saints forced him to beat them with their strong run defense. He responded by crumbling against consistent pressure over 56 dropbacks. He never got the Bears into a rhythm when the outcome of the game was still in doubt.
VIDEO: Saints-Bears highlights
In most divisions, being .500 coming out of Week 7 would keep a team in a division race, but in the NFC North, where the Packers are 6-1 and the Vikings are 5-2 after big wins Sunday, it means the Bears have already faded, even as an NFC wild-card contender.
Trubisky's latest shaky game came on a Sunday when Aaron Rodgers (25-of-31 passing, 429 yards, five TDs, 158.3 rating) was back to his spectacular self for Green Bay and Kirk Cousins (24 for 34, 337 yards, four TDs) continued to be stellar for Minnesota. Detroit's Matthew Stafford (30 for 45, 364 yards, four TDs, one INT) also played very well despite losing a high-scoring duel to Cousins.
So much for Chicago finding its QB solution when it traded up to take Trubisky No. 2 overall in the 2017 draft. Instead of building on his mild breakthrough in the first season of second-year head coach Matt Nagy's offense, he has regressed to how he played as a rookie, when he had a much lesser supporting cast of skill players.
Trubisky has become a more tentative passer, skittish in the pocket awareness. To make matters worse, he's no longer helping himself as a runner.
In this era of offensive explosion, teams learn quickly what level of success a young QB will reach. Trubisky's 2017 first-round draft classmates Patrick Mahomes and Deshaun Watson have zoomed ahead and shown they have the "it" factor. Trubisky has gone from paling in comparison to the two to teetering toward being the Bears' latest bust at the position.
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With Rodgers, Cousins and Stafford all under big contracts that limit their respective teams' spending elsewhere, the Bears seemed to have an advantage with Trubisky still being on his rookie deal. The Bears were able to aggressively add to their defense last season to make it an elite unit. Now that the defense has regressed against both the run and pass, they need Trubisky to be more playmaker than caretaker. He has proved highly incapable of that, save for one game against the hapless Redskins.
Nagy and the Bears have treated Trubisky like someone who can handle a high volume of throws with aplomb, but what is supposed to a multiple, versatile and explosive passing game is still limited to Trubisky throwing mainly to No. 1 wide receiver Allen Robinson.
The Packers have enjoyed elite QB play for a long time with Rodgers taking over from Brett Favre. The Lions are 11 seasons into Stafford giving them steady, prolific play, and he has never been more efficient. The Vikings' splurge on Cousins is finally paying off as he plays the best football of his career.
Just when you thought the Bears had bridged the gap at quarterback, they look farther away than ever from their division rivals. An NFL team can't hide a QB deficiency, something the Bears have learned the hard way this season when trying to rely upon Trubisky.
The Bears, therefore, are in a tough spot. Mahomes and Watson can think about the pace-setting contracts they will receive beyond 2020, but Trubisky shouldn't. At this point, it's hard to justify paying Trubisky long term, let alone anything close to what Jared Goff and Carson Wentz, the respective Nos. 1 and 2 picks one draft earlier, just received.
Do they stick it out with Trubisky and hope Nagy can get him to improve in a hurry? Or do they start thinking about him being a lost cause and bench him to save a season that began with high expectations of a return to the playoffs?
The problem is, there is little upside to turning to backup Chase Daniel. The Bears already saw their offense sputter with him when he started for an injured Trubisky in Week 5 against the Raiders in London. That also means there are systemic issues with Nagy that Trubisky may not be able to overcome, either.
AFTER WEEK 1: Trubisky's troubles won't go away until Bears stop getting cute
Granted, Trubisky hasn't been supported by good offensive line play or a solid running game and his non-Robinson receivers have been inconsistent, but Rodgers, Cousins and Stafford have also had issues with their surrounding personnel, injury or otherwise, and still been able to thrive.
The Packers, Lions and Vikings are in a good spot with experience and execution at the most important position. The Bears, on the other hand, are in the worst place to be in the NFL — quarterback purgatory. With Trubisky, they're damned if they do and damned if they don't.
To that end, Nagy told reporters Sunday that the Bears have no plans to make a switch from Trubisky. There is no other choice. Trubisky either needs to surge now, or else there will another QB purge in Chicago not much later.
