When the Chicago Bears surrendered three draft picks to move up one slot for the privilege of selecting Mitchell Trubisky with the second overall pick of the 2017 NFL Draft, it was clear that the team viewed the former North Carolina standout as its quarterback of the future.
Even though the organization had just signed Mike Glennon to a three-year, $45 million deal, Trubisky immediately became the foundation the Bears intended to build around, but the question of when he would be unveiled as the team’s starter had yet to be answered.
Newly Signed Mitchell Trubisky Won’t Start for Chicago Bears… Yet
Now that Trubisky has officially put pen to paper and signed his rookie contract, speculation about his immediate role will only intensify, and as the team prepares for the start of training camp, the quarterback situation will be at the forefront of most Bears conversations.
SIGNED. ✍️ pic.twitter.com/QgxCpNsmGV
— Chicago Bears (@ChicagoBears) July 19, 2017
Any time a team spends a top five pick on a quarterback, fans and media alike are always clamoring to see him take the field as soon as possible. After all, if the Bears felt strongly enough about Trubisky to part with so much draft capital, it stands to reason that they would want to get him under center as soon as possible, right?
Not necessarily.
The Current Plan
All indications out of the Windy City are that the Bears are planning on taking it slowly with their would-be franchise passer. In fact, Rich Campbell of The Chicago Tribune posits that the team’s current intention is for Glennon to hold onto the starting job for the entire 2017 season:
“It’s Glennon’s job on Day 1, and the team plans for the depth chart to remain stacked that way. All season, in fact.”
In theory, this is the right approach for the organization to take. Trubisky, for all his talent and upside, started a mere 13 games in college, and the learning curve as he enters the NFL is going to be very steep. Rushing him into the starting lineup before he is ready could seriously damage his potential, should he have his confidence shaken in the early going.
The Bears spent all that money on Glennon because they believed he could be, at the very least, a respectable NFL starter, and giving him this opportunity while Trubisky learns and develops is a prudent move. The offense is going to be built around sophomore tailback Jordan Howard this season, and there is no reason to assume that Glennon can’t handle the role of Howard’s sidekick.
Furthermore, Glennon’s contract is structured in a way that would make it easy for the team to move on once they feel confident handing the keys to the Cadillac over to the youngster. It’s a win-win situation, and ultimately the logical way to approach things.
Plans Change
However, in a game as emotional and reactionary as football, logic often finds itself flying out the window. Should Glennon stumble out of the gate or string together a couple of bad performances, the calls for Trubisky will grow louder and louder. That’s just the nature of the NFL landscape. There will be pressure from all fronts to play the youngster and “see what the team has in him,” even if it could prove detrimental to his long-term development.
It’s an understandable reality of the league in 2017. Young quarterbacks are seldom given the time to sit back and learn the nuances of the game in a supporting role, often being thrust into a starting job well before they’re ready. It’s very uncommon to see a highly-touted quarterback sit and wait like Aaron Rodgers did for the first few years of his career.
Jimmy Garappolo is a future NFL starter and potential standout, and is perhaps the best current example of the benefit of taking it slow with a young player. However, his situation is similar to Rodgers’, in that he’s waiting behind a Hall of Famer. Most young signal callers aren’t afforded the same luxury.
Trubisky’s first-round quarterback compatriots Patrick Mahomes and Deshaun Watson could both conceivably sit and wait for a while, although Watson is likely to win the starting role from Tom Savage sooner than later. Mahomes, on the other hand, is behind an established starter in Alex Smith, so he may be a legitimate “redshirt” candidate, although that’s not a given either.
Trubisky’s NFL Future
In the case of Trubisky, it’s only a matter of time until he finds himself taking snaps in a regular season contest. Whether that happens in 2017 or not is up in the air, but in the interim, Bears fans can take comfort in the fact that the team believes it has found a homegrown signal caller to build around for the foreseeable future. In today’s NFL, that’s the first step toward building a winning franchise. What happens over the next several seasons has the potential to be very exciting.
