The storyline in Chicago has been well-known for the first three weeks of the season and it’s the same moving forward: the defense and Mitch Trubisky.
In the past, it’s been about how the defense has carried the offense and bailed Trubisky out of every game this season, but even the biggest hater couldn’t complain about his performance Sunday.
Over 350 yards and six touchdowns later, Trubisky led the Bears to a dominating victory over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 48-10.
As optimistic as Bears fans can be, nobody expected that performance.
From the jump, it was obvious it was going to be a special afternoon for Trubisky and company. He looked as poised as he has as a Bear; he was making throws that Chicago fans have been fantasizing about, and he wasn’t making any of the mistakes previously seen this season.
He truly looked the part of a former second overall draft pick.
While it’s important not to overreact to a bad performance, the same can be said about an excellent performance. Trubisky can come back from the bye week and throw three interceptions and people can be rioting in the streets calling for Chase Daniel.
That’s just how it works in Chicago.
Looking back on the tape, there are obvious reasons why Trubisky and the offense was so successful.
For starters, the Buccaneers secondary was depleted and had average-at-best defensive backs covering top receivers, allowing speed-demons Tarik Cohen and Taylor Gabriel to have huge games.
Matt Nagy took notice of this immediately.
It was like running the same three plays on Madden against an inexperienced opponent with a weak defense. Simply nothing Tampa Bay could do to stop Trubisky and the rest of the offense, so why switch it up?
For the first time this season, Nagy found a formula that worked and didn’t change a thing. Getting the ball to the fastest players isn’t always going to be the key to success, but this week, there was no need to even try anything else.
While Jordan Howard would’ve loved to get the ball more than 11 times, he knows as well as anybody that there’s going to come a time where Trubisky doesn’t have it and the Bears are going to have to rely on him as a workhorse to get it done.
That simply wasn’t the case this week, so there was no need to overwork him or risk breaking the recipe that this team has worked so hard to discover.
Of course, the defense had a great game per usual as Khalil Mack had his weekly strip-sack and the defense forced three more interceptions. It’s a joy watching the defense perform like this on a weekly basis, but the offensive performance will rightfully get all the headlines.
Just like with Trubisky’s bad games, this isn’t going to be a weekly thing for him. He’s a young, inexperienced talent, and there are going to be bad moments and there are going to be great moments.
The big question moving forward is where the middle ground is for Trubisky and how consistent he can be over the course of a season.
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