NFL Draft: Why Trading Up for Mitch Trubisky was Wrong Move by Bears

The first round of the 2017 NFL Draft came with a number of surprises, but none bigger than the Chicago Bears moving up from the number three to number two pick to take North Carolina quarterback Mitch Trubisky.

There were rumors North Carolina quarterback Mitch Trubisky might be taken by the Cleveland Browns with the number one overall pick. Turns out those suspicions weren’t far off, as the Chicago Bears made a deal with the San Francisco 49ers to move up one spot and grab Trubisky at number two.

If you look at things from a certain point of view, the move by Chicago to take Trubisky with the number two overall pick in the 2017 NFL Draft wasn’t really that bad.

But when you turn the deal and look at a different angle, the reasoning begins to look paper thin, and it seems as though unless Bears GM Ryan Pace is secretly a Time Lord with his own personal Tardis at his disposal, giving him some insight to the future, that the Bears really flubbed this one.

The Bears are looking to the future, and are in a rebuilding mode again. But ransoming a big part of that future for a quarterback who – for all intents and purposes – is really untested was a risky way to go about doing it.

The Numbers Don’t Add Up

Although Trubisky was officially a Tar Heel for three seasons, he only performed some spot clean-up and injury replacement duty in his first two seasons. It wasn’t until 2016 that Trubisky was given the reigns of the offense.

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Did he perform admirably? If you look at the numbers in total, absolutely. 304 of 447 passes for 3,748 yards, 30 touchdowns, only six interceptions and 68 percent completed passes is nothing to sneeze at in Division I football.

But here’s the problem with those stats. In the aggregate, they look great. But if you break down the parts which make up that whole, then you see a much different picture.

Trubisky put up video game-like numbers against teams such as Illinois, James Madison, Virginia, Georgia Tech, the Citadel and even Florida State (who had a lot of early season defensive struggles).

In the Tar Heels eight wins last season, Trubisky averaged 334 yards per game, with 22 total touchdowns and zero interceptions.

But look at North Carolina’s five losses in 2016.

Against Georgia, Trubusky went 24 of 40 for only 156 yards. No touchdowns.
Against Virginia Tech, Trubisky went 13 of 33 for only 58 yards and two interceptions. No touchdowns.
Against Duke, Trubisky went 24 of 33 for 297 yards, three touchdowns and two interceptions.
Against NC State, Trubisky went 23 of 38 for 280 yards and three touchdowns.
And against Stanford, Trubisky was 23 of 39 for 280 yards, two touchdowns and two interceptions.

That averages out to 214.2 yards per game, with eight total touchdowns and six interceptions. That’s a huge disparity in statistics for wins and losses, especially given the fact that Trubisky averaged nearly the same number of pass attempts in wins (33) as he did in losses (36.6).

It’s clear that against some weaker FCS teams and poor ACC defenses, Trubisky had a field day, but when faced with a challenge on the other side of the field, he struggled.

All This For A Project?

Now it’s true that Mitchell Trubisky is a good looking young quarterback with all the tools to be successful, or as Bears GM Ryan Pace told reporters in a press conference via the Chicago Tribune, “His potential to be a championship quarterback…is all we focused on in this move. We feel we have the perfect environment for his development.”

The problem with that statement? Every quarterback in the NFL Draft has the potential to be a championship quarterback. They all have the tools. Is it really necessary to use the number two overall pick on an unproven project quarterback?

And was it even worse to trade away four draft picks – the No. 3 overall pick, a third-round pick (67th overall), a 2017 fourth-round pick (111th overall) and a third-round pick in the 2018 draft – to secure that position?

When you look at it from that perspective, the Bears blew it, and it’s a sure thing the Patriots would have considered that offer (or maybe less) for the coveted Jimmy Garoppolo.

If you really want to see Bears fans turn red-faced, remind them that to take Trubisky, the Bears left the guy who just sliced up the vaunted Alabama defense in a national championship game –  Deshaun Watson – sitting in the green room.

Related Story: Bears Suffering Through Perplexing Draft

What about Glennon?

The next problem with this move by the Bears is another quarterback. The guy Chicago just signed to a bloated 3-year, $45 million contract (with $18.5 million guaranteed), Mike Glennon – a guy who has only six more starts in the pros than Trubisky did in college.

And what does Pace have to say about the Glennon-Trubisky dynamic now that the smoke has cleared?

"“Mike Glennon is our starting quarterback. There’s no quarterback competition when Mitch gets here. Glennon is our starting quarterback. We’ll focus on Mitch’s development and Mike Glennon winning games for the Chicago Bears.”"

You financially leverage your team for cap hit of $14-16 million per year with Glennon’s deal, and then you leverage your future giving away a handful of picks to select a guy who likely would have been there one pick later anyway, and who will apparently be carrying a clipboard.

If you’re going to give up that many picks, and make a bold move in opening minutes of the NFL Draft to choose a quarterback, you’d best be prepared to start that quarterback.

Not to mention, the head coach in charge of developing Trubisky – John Fox – had no idea he was being drafted until a couple of hours prior to the announcement being made, per NBC Sports. Want to lay odds as to which one of the two – Trubisky or Fox – will still be in Chicago in three years?

All in all, this draft pick by the Bears resembles someone who dragged themselves away from a six-car pileup feeling absolutely giddy that only their two legs are mangled.

Next: 5 Riskiest Picks of 2017 NFL Draft First Round

In the end, perhaps Pace got it right. Trubisky might spend three years learning from Glennon and his coaches and wind up breaking all sorts of Bears records en route to the first Super Bowl win since 1985-86. Risk versus reward is hard to gauge in the first round, but in this case it seems clear the scales were massively tilted towards risk.