Grading QB Mitchell Trubisky’s deal with the Bills: A
The interesting thing about former Bears bust Mitchell Trubisky signing a one-year deal with the Bills is that had this happened in last year’s free-agency cycle, when the last memory of Josh Allen was Allen horfing all over himself in Buffalo’s wild-card loss to the Texans to end the Bills’ 2019 season, we may be viewing this as a quarterback competition. But the Bills were patient with Allen, believing that his athletic potential and quarterback acumen would eventually meet up, and it certainly did in the 2020 season. The Bills made it all the way to the AFC Championship, Allen played at an MVP level at times, and all was well all of a sudden.
The hidden ingredient in Allen’s improvement was offensive coordinator Brian Daboll, who gave Allen the ideal route concepts and reads against man coverage, and managed his quarterback when late coverage switches started to make Allen’s head explode. Trubisky is where Allen was before he became the next-level version of himself — a quarterback with above-average athletic potential with very little in the way of consistency.
The Bears decided to move on from Trubisky, who they traded up to select with the second overall pick in the 2017 draft, following the 2020 season. They had already declined his fifth-year option in 2020, so unless Trubisky performed at a… well, at a Josh Allen 2020 level in 2020, there was not going to be a reunion. Not that Trubisky was anywhere near that, but he wasn’t grievously awful, especially in the second half of the season. From Week 11 through Chicago’s wild-card loss to the Saints, Trubisky completed 70.1% of his passes for 1,495 yards, 10 touchdowns, and five interceptions.
Now, under Daboll, Trubisky will have a no-pressure gig unless Allen gets hurt, and he’ll be able to re-learn the position with a playbook that has been proven friendly to remedial quarterbacks. And if Trubisky does have to start for any length of time, a heavy dose of boot-action would do him a world of good. Last season, per Sports Info Solutions, Trubisky completed 31 of 46 passes for 304 yards, 106 yards after the catch, two touchdowns, and no interceptions. Under Daboll, Allen completed 12 of 23 such passes for 120 yards, 69 yards after the catch, four touchdowns, and one interception.
Nobody is going to mistake Trubisky for Allen under the best of circumstances, but this is an ideal place for Trubisky to take what was a decent season and build on it. The deal also gives the Bills a decent scheme-fit backup, and that has more value than people think… until the decent scheme-fit backup is needed as a starter.
