One of the problems infesting the football community is that of revisionist history. Guys who claim to be the gurus of one thing or another make a proclamation, realize later that they’re wrong and proceed to make it seem like they always knew the opposite was true. Nowhere is this more prevalent than the NFL draft. Plenty of Chicago Bears fans like to say they always knew Mitch Trubisky was a poison pill when the team drafted. Odds are quite a few of them are lying. As it turns out, the Bears media is no different.
Dan Durkin has covered the team for years as part of The Athletic. He was right there with everybody else when the Bears drafted Trubisky. Based on a recent tweet following the magical comeback in Houston led by Deshaun Watson over Buffalo, he’d make you think he always knew Chicago made a mistake. One fan wasn’t having it. Shane Marsaw, a member of the popular Bears Barroom Network, exposed Durkin as a particularly brutal revisionist.
Not only did he have Trubisky ranked ahead of both Watson and Patrick Mahomes, but had Notre Dame’s DeShone Kizer as his #1. In case people forgot, Kizer was traded by his original team after just one season and has been a backup ever since. Clearly Durkin knows all about drafting good quarterbacks.
All the experts will say they knew Trubisky wouldn’t be anything. The fact is they knew nothing. Was he a risk? Sure. Every quarterback coming out of college is a risk. Mahomes and Watson were risks. Some would argue even bigger ones than Trubisky. Mahomes had gunslinger tendencies that could lead to turnover issues. Watson had a history of health problems. Trubisky only started one season and was still an unknown. GM Ryan Pace weighed his options and made a decision.
It was the wrong decision.
Sadly a far-too-common theme with the Bears when it comes to quarterbacks. Others may have chosen differently but that doesn’t mean they were taking any less of a risk. People who shout to the heavens that they always knew it would turn out this way are lying. Just like Durkin did. This exposure serves as a reminder of that.
