George McCaskey took his turn talking to the Chicago Bears media after the regular season ended in 2019. Most of it wasn’t all that memorable. He professed obvious disappointment in how things went, why he thought they happened and made it clear he expected things to be better in 2020. He also expressed the utmost trust that head coach Matt Nagy and GM Ryan Pace. However, when the conversation came around to quarterback Mitch Trubisky? Things got odd.
When asked directly about whether he backed the embattled 25-year old, McCaskey instead stated he was glad he didn’t make the football decisions and again insisted he had full trust in Nagy and Pace. After digging a little deeper, it turns out that wasn’t the only time the Bears chairman seemed to deliberately dodge the question regarding Trubisky. He was asked his impressions of the quarterback’s up and down season.
Rather than give a direct response, McCaskey went off-script. Not only did he move away from Trubisky, but the entire offense as well. He went on a detailed rant about how the defense needs to step up after regressing. The Bears needed more takeaways. They needed to give the offense shorter fields. That is a fascinating answer considering the defense finished 4th in points allowed. For him to lay such heavy criticism on them sends a pretty loud and clear signal.
McCaskey has little faith in this offense getting much better.
In truth, can anybody blame him for feeling this way? The Bears offense has never really been good during the three years with Trubisky at quarterback. They did finish 9th in scoring in 2018 but that was aided by several defensive touchdowns and a ridiculous string of takeaway. Hence why McCaskey mentioned a need for more. He doesn’t trust this offense and this quarterback is capable of engineering longer drives on a consistent basis.
Considering the offense has finished 21st and 29th in total yards the past two seasons, it’s hard to blame him. He has eyes like everybody else. Nothing about Trubisky’s play the past four months indicated he is the franchise guy the Bears were hoping for. Keep in mind McCaskey was a huge backer of Jay Cutler for several years. That should give people an understanding of why his middling vocal support of Trubisky is significant.
