Bears not picking up fifth-year option on QB Mitch Trubisky

[goldfishwars]

Arif Hasan does a consensus big board of the top media prospect rankings each year. More recently it's behind a paywall on The Athletic, but you can see 2017's for free here:-

Deshaun Watson is the top rated QB at 22, Trubisky is at 23 and Mahomes is at 30. Mahomes was a very later 'riser' in that process if memory serves me. 

https://zonecoverage.com/2017/featured/the-2017-consensus-big-board-complete-300-player-rankings/

[Thelonebillsfan]

12 hours ago, goldfishwars said:

Arif Hasan does a consensus big board of the top media prospect rankings each year. More recently it's behind a paywall on The Athletic, but you can see 2017's for free here:-

Deshaun Watson is the top rated QB at 22, Trubisky is at 23 and Mahomes is at 30. Mahomes was a very later 'riser' in that process if memory serves me. 

https://zonecoverage.com/2017/featured/the-2017-consensus-big-board-complete-300-player-rankings/

Mahomes was considered a late-1st/early-2nd round guy until very late in the process. Lot of 2nd round smoke

Edited May 13, 2020 by Thelonebillsfan

[ForteOz]

On 5/12/2020 at 8:57 AM, sp6488 said:

But EVERYONE KNEW that Trubisky shouldn't have been the top QB! /s

This argument is really tired, and turning into a straw man. I realize this doesn't see as much light outside of Bears team discussions, since we are the ones stuck with the runt of the litter with little to do but play 'what if', but the HUGE POINT left out of this statement is how absolutely ridiculous the trade up from #3 to #2 was.

I don't know who is out there saying 'no one thought Trubisky should go first'. It was generally accepted that all 3 quarterbacks were relatively close in terms of their value as prospects. Floors and ceilings varied, and all of them had question marks, depending on your appetite for risk. By the end, a lot of people predicted the correct order based not only on the prospect themselves, but also the order the teams were picking and their perceived level of interest/team fit. Good on them. But lets be fair, if we are defining success as getting the order the QB's come off relative to each other, and not all other positions, then it's a lot easier to be right. Blind chance will be right 1/6 of the time guessing the order of 3 items.

Anyway, so you had 3 first-ish round QB's, none of whom were good enough to go #1 overall to a QB needy (desperate) team. That is typically a bad sign, and even worse when not just one but TWO teams in need of QB are deciding to pass on the whole lot (Cle and SF).

But where the Bears were now obviously wrong was that they clearly saw Trubisky as the FAR better prospect than Watson and Mahomes, so much so that they had to outbid some mystery team for the privilege of drafting him at #2 instead of whichever of the remaining two QBs would have been left to them at #3.

So rather than showing us who correctly predicted the order of the 3 first round QBs, I'd like to see who out there (besides Pace and his room of yes men) thought Trubisky was so much better of a prospect than the other two QB's, that you simply HAD to move up into the top 2 to get him. This is why the pick was a shock. If the Bears wanted/needed a QB so badly, at least 2 of the 3 were going to be there for them.

The Bears didn't just bet on which one they thought was better. Everyone had a hard time making that call. It was a 3-way coinflip.

But Pace bet the house that Trubisky would be FAR AND AWAY better than the other two. And he needed him to be for that trade up to make ANY SENSE. That is where their evaluation needs to be called out for the epic failure that it was.

[sp6488]

1 hour ago, ForteOz said:

This argument is really tired, and turning into a straw man. I realize this doesn't see as much light outside of Bears team discussions, since we are the ones stuck with the runt of the litter with little to do but play 'what if', but the HUGE POINT left out of this statement is how absolutely ridiculous the trade up from #3 to #2 was.

I don't know who is out there saying 'no one thought Trubisky should go first'. It was generally accepted that all 3 quarterbacks were relatively close in terms of their value as prospects. Floors and ceilings varied, and all of them had question marks, depending on your appetite for risk. By the end, a lot of people predicted the correct order based not only on the prospect themselves, but also the order the teams were picking and their perceived level of interest/team fit. Good on them. But lets be fair, if we are defining success as getting the order the QB's come off relative to each other, and not all other positions, then it's a lot easier to be right. Blind chance will be right 1/6 of the time guessing the order of 3 items.

Anyway, so you had 3 first-ish round QB's, none of whom were good enough to go #1 overall to a QB needy (desperate) team. That is typically a bad sign, and even worse when not just one but TWO teams in need of QB are deciding to pass on the whole lot (Cle and SF).

But where the Bears were now obviously wrong was that they clearly saw Trubisky as the FAR better prospect than Watson and Mahomes, so much so that they had to outbid some mystery team for the privilege of drafting him at #2 instead of whichever of the remaining two QBs would have been left to them at #3.

So rather than showing us who correctly predicted the order of the 3 first round QBs, I'd like to see who out there (besides Pace and his room of yes men) thought Trubisky was so much better of a prospect than the other two QB's, that you simply HAD to move up into the top 2 to get him. This is why the pick was a shock. If the Bears wanted/needed a QB so badly, at least 2 of the 3 were going to be there for them.

The Bears didn't just bet on which one they thought was better. Everyone had a hard time making that call. It was a 3-way coinflip.

But Pace bet the house that Trubisky would be FAR AND AWAY better than the other two. And he needed him to be for that trade up to make ANY SENSE. That is where their evaluation needs to be called out for the epic failure that it was.

 

My point was directed at apparent revisionist history that everyone knew Mahomes/Watson would be great and better than Trubisky (and apparently that race somehow entered the issue).

You're talking about something completely different in the bolded, that I think is a fair point and I am not going to argue against you on. 

[sammymvpknight]

On 5/4/2020 at 11:55 AM, KhanYouDigIt said:

The Saints and Texans made him play in a phone booth. It did not go well.

But the Jags OL was also trash and they didn’t have anything close to a short-to-intermediate passing threat. That’s a receipt for your rookie QB getting killed when they can’t escape the pocket. Minshew has some tough situations last year and still found a way to win 6 games as a rookie. 

[HoboRocket]

On 5/4/2020 at 1:20 AM, Tugboat said:

I feel like there was a pretty big box that wasn't "ticked" on Trubisky as a prospect.  The lack of experience was pretty blatantly a serious risk factor.  Basically a one-year starter, with mediocre results and plenty of warts and questionmarks.  It was always a big swing on "projection"...extrapolated from basically one season of information and evaluation.  Which just isn't enough.

I wouldn't say it's really just an "it factor" he's missing that's really doomed him though.  Unless "it" is essentially, "quarterbacking ability".

Also, keep in mind that Trubisky couldn't win the starting job over Marquise Williams (the unimpressive former XFL 3rd-string QB) at UNC due to intangibles and consistency issues. That was a pretty big red flag to me and a couple MAJOR boxes that weren't ticked.

[kwolf68]

On 5/4/2020 at 4:10 PM, SteelKing728 said:

There are some things I'm very thankful for every day.

One of them is the Bears passing up on Mahomes for Mitch Trubisky.

 

Not only did they pass up Mahomes, they traded multiple picks to move up one spot to take a player no one else was going to take. Pace got hookwinked by himself when courting Trubiskey. I don't think they even did an interview with DeShaun Watson after Pace went to visit Trubiskey in North Carolina and fell in love with Mitchell. 

Disaster move it is almost a fact, but he has one more year perhaps to prove us all wrong.

[JAF-N72EX]

49 minutes ago, kwolf68 said:

they traded multiple picks to move up one spot to take a player no one else was going to take

Proof? 

He was widely regarded as the 1a, 1b QB in the draft with Watson by most and Mahomes wasn't even in the same conversation. 

49 minutes ago, kwolf68 said:

I don't think they even did an interview with DeShaun Watson after Pace went to visit Trubiskey in North Carolina and fell in love with Mitchell. 

And this is why you don't believe everything you read. The idea that they did not interview Watson has already been debunked. In fact, it's a bad look on Watson.

Also, just because a team does not interview a prospect does not mean they are not interested. Quite the opposite actually. They may not interview a prospect just to HIDE their interest in a player as part of their strategic draft plan. See the Ravens staff/GM Ozzie as an example. They never interviewed Lamar Jackson either because they didn't wan to throw out a red flag in order to raise the chances of him still being available with their pick even though they were sold on him from the jump.

Edited May 20, 2020 by JustAnotherFan

[kwolf68]

18 minutes ago, JustAnotherFan said:

Proof? 

He was widely regarded as the 1a, 1b QB in the draft with Watson by most and Mahomes wasn't even in the same conversation. 

And this is why you don't believe everything you read. The idea that they did not interview Watson has already been debunked. In fact, it's a bad look on Watson.

Also, just because a team does not interview a prospect does not mean they are not interested. Quite the opposite actually. They may not interview a prospect just to HIDE their interest in a player as part of their strategic draft plan. See the Ravens staff/GM Ozzie as an example. They never interviewed Lamar Jackson either because they didn't wan to throw out a red flag in order to raise the chances of him still being available with their pick even though they were sold on him from the jump.

 

Yet none were really projected to go that high. Picking Trubiskey ahead of either Mahomes or Watson was an epic fail of scouting laziness. The book on  Mahomes was what? The system he ran at Texas Tech. Did anyone bother to actually go watch the kid throw a football? Meanwhile, Watson was a national champion, a proven winner on the biggest stage. Trubiskey? 11 career starts.

Also, as far as the interview. There is absolutely NOTHING debunked about how the Bears courted Trubiskey v. the other two. They visited Trubiskey in North Carolina, went to great lengths to court him. They did none of that with the other two QBs. YES, you are right watson did "talk to" the Bears on the phone, but that was the crux of the exchange. I stand by my statement, the Bears had made up their mind prior to conducting final interviews for the position. Flew to NC, fell in love, cut loose any idea of grabbing one of the other two, then stupidly traded away assets to move up one spot. 

And in the end, the Bears got the worst of the 3, both Watson and Mahomes have taken their teams further than Trubiskey. The biggest difference in the Chiefs, Texans and Bears is who is at QB. 

Edited May 20, 2020 by kwolf68

[Soko]

8 minutes ago, kwolf68 said:

Yet none were really projected to go that high. Picking Trubiskey ahead of either Mahomes or Watson was an epic fail of scouting laziness. The book on  Mahomes was what?

Hindsight is a lovely thing isn’t it.

 

[JAF-N72EX]

11 minutes ago, kwolf68 said:

 

Yet none were really projected to go that high. Picking Trubiskey ahead of either Mahome or Watson was an epic fail of scouting laziness.

You claimed noone else was going to take him and I asked for proof. Where's the proof?

Most had Mitch/Watson as a 1a/1b -- basically a flip of a coin. Most ranked Mahomes behind both of them. 

https://zonecoverage.com/2017/featured/the-2017-consensus-big-board-complete-300-player-rankings/

11 minutes ago, kwolf68 said:

There is absolutely NOTHING debunked about how the Bears courted Trubiskey v. the other two.

That's not what I referred to as being debunked. I debunked your idea that the Bears did not even interview Watson. 

11 minutes ago, kwolf68 said:

They visited Trubiskey in North Carolina, went to great lengths to court him. They did none of that with the other two QBs.

Again this means nothing, as I said, but do you have proof of this?

edit: You seem to be throwing out alot of opinions and treating them as fact. 

Edited May 20, 2020 by JustAnotherFan

[JAF-N72EX]

3 minutes ago, Yin-Yang said:

Hindsight is a lovely thing isn’t it.

 

I highlighted your post for a good reason Ying. Can you PLEASE come to the Bears forum and explain this to some of these fans? PLEASE!

Edited May 20, 2020 by JustAnotherFan

[Soko]

2 hours ago, JustAnotherFan said:

I highlighted your post for a good reason Ying. Can you PLEASE come to the Bears forum and explain this to some of these fans? PLEASE!

Feel free to share the thoughts where fit. 

I understand Mitch is now a lulzy QB (not unlike Cutler, just in a different way) but the Bears weren’t out of bounds for taking him where they did. He was in the conversation for the best QB that year and universally recognized as a first rounder - so inflation is the name in that game. QBs just go higher than they ought to if every team was going BPA, whatever. He wasn’t a Geno Smith or EJ Manuel type prospect that then went high. And I’m not defending the pick either, but pretending Trubisky was a flagrant reach that everyone knew would be a bust, is wrong IMO. 

There we’re definitely a share that questioned Mitch with his limited college success. And there were plenty banging the table for the national champion, Deshaun Watson. And yes, people were recognizing the physical talent that Mahomes was bringing to the table. But nobody really knew how they’d play out. Bears just got the bottom end of that stick. And shame on them/Pace for it, but accept that it was a mistake that anyone could’ve made.

[JAF-N72EX]

2 minutes ago, Yin-Yang said:

Feel free to share the thoughts where fit. 

I understand Mitch is now a lulzy QB (not unlike Cutler, just in a different way) but the Bears weren’t out of bounds for taking him where they did. He was in the conversation for the best QB that year and universally recognized as a first rounder - so inflation is the name in that game. QBs just go higher than they ought to if every team was going BPA, whatever. He wasn’t a Geno Smith or EJ Manuel type prospect that then went high. And I’m not defending the pick either, but pretending Trubisky was a flagrant reach that everyone knew would be a bust, is wrong IMO. 

There we’re definitely a share that questioned Mitch with his limited college success. And there were plenty banging the table for the national champion, Deshaun Watson. And yes, people were recognizing the physical talent that Mahomes was bringing to the table. But nobody really knew how they’d play out. Bears just got the bottom end of that stick. And shame on them/Pace for it, but accept that it was a mistake that anyone could’ve made.

Beautiful! This same point of view is what some Bears fans just simply cannot understand. Instead they only use hindsight to crucify the pick. 

 

[Elky]

Who said Trubisky was the best QB? People like Mel Kiper who never worked as a scout? Trubisky benefited from an overall weak class and other factors. Nothing about him screamed that he had more potential than Watson and Mahomes.

Terrible pick that will lead to another house cleaning. Shame cuz Nagy looked like he had sone promise. Try again Chicago!!!

Edited May 20, 2020 by Elky