Trust Me

Your Chicago Bears pulled off an exciting victory against the Vikings’ second string—don’t want your most valuable players hurt going into the playoffs—by a score of 21-19 to finish the season at 8-8.  Head coach Matt Nagy said after the game the 2020 season has already started for him.  Here’s hoping it’s not a waste of his time, or ours.

Nagy’s afraid to run the ball or throw it downfield.  If he doesn’t address the reasons why, next year becomes a repeat of this year.  And even if he does, general manager Ryan Pace may be on a different page than Nagy, if not in a different universe.  I mean, who ultimately is responsible for this roster filled with invisible tight ends and offensive linemen?  Whoever it is, that’s the guy you want to great rid of.

But we’re talking the McCaskeys here, and they’re enamored with Pace.  In other words, Pace gets to clean up the mess he’s made, or frustrate us all in the attempt.  Pace thought he’d assembled a really great offensive line to protect quarterback Mitch Trubisky.  Oops.  According to The Athletic, Trubisky was sacked 38 times, ninth most in the NFL.  I think it’s safe to say that Pace knows offensive linemen about as well as he does tight ends.  See Trey Burton, Adam Shaheen, Jesper Horsted….

Pace believes in Trubisky, which is to say he never believed in Jimmy Garoppolo, at least not enough to trade for in 2016 or ’17.  The 49ers did, which is a major reason they just won the NFC West.  Garoppolo threw for 27 touchdowns in the regular season vs. 17 for Trubisky, with 13 interceptions to Trubisky’s 10.  But, hey, maybe Pace figures it out and Trubisky gets better next year.  We can always hope.

Just don’t expect much of anything.