Matt Nagy doubles down, insists pulling Mitch Trubisky was ‘completely based off’ injury
Chicago Bears fans may not be buying it, but Matt Nagy is sticking to it.
The Bears coach said again on Monday that his decision to pull quarterback Mitch Trubisky from their 17-7 loss to the Los Angeles Rams on Sunday was based purely on his health.
It had nothing to do with his poor performance at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, Nagy insisted.
“It had zero to do with his play,” Nagy said, via the Bears. “It was completely based off of the injury that he had last night and where he’s at, 100 percent.”
Trubisky went 24-of-43 for 190 yards, throwing both a touchdown and an interception, before he was pulled late in the fourth quarter and replaced by backup Chase Daniel.
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Nagy said Trubisky suffered the right hip pointer injury late in the first half after taking a sack, and that it grew “stiff, tighter and tighter” as the night went on. Though Trubisky tried to convince Nagy to let him stay in the game, Nagy decided it was time.
“He’s at a point where you could see it was painful,” Nagy said, via the Bears. “So what I had to do was I wanted him to know coming from me that he needs to be brutally honest with me in regards to his pain and where he’s at. And that’s exactly what it was.
“I sat there and I told him, I said, ‘Listen, man, we appreciate your toughness. We appreciate you being as tough as you can possibly be and want you to stay in the game. But I need to be able to make a decision because there’s a fine line of that pain or being injured to where it affects how you play or decisions that you make because of being injured.’ And I think that’s where we got to.”
While Nagy insisted that the move was purely injury-related again on Monday after initially doing so on Sunday night, it’s easy to see why fans may be skeptical.
Trubisky — who the Bears moved up to take with the second overall pick in the 2017 draft — has had a rough season. He’s thrown for just 1,580 yards and nine touchdowns over nine games, and has often struggled to get the offense rolling. He threw for just 125 yards and completed only 10 passes in their loss to Philadelphia in Week 9, and recorded just 173 yards on 16 completions in their game against the Lions last week, though threw three touchdowns in that win.
Nagy didn’t, though, elaborate on Trubisky’s status going forward — starting with Sunday’s matchup against the New York Giants. If he’s healthy, Nagy said, he’ll be the starting quarterback.
“We’re working through that,” he said, via ESPN.
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