Tweet 1.
I can’t get over this. Trevathan has been so bad through 2 games that Bears have him playing less than half the snaps.
His contract runs through 2022, and the Bears really can’t get out of it. Unless he turns it around, that’s an unmitigated disaster. https://t.co/cvrrPFj1s5
— Johnathan Wood (@Johnathan_Wood1) September 21, 2020
Tweet 2.
We saw Chuck Pagano use Deon Bush significantly more in pass coverage and Danny Trevathan’s playing time plummeted the last 5 quarters. That doesn’t seem like a slow start, seems like Pagano sees a problem. And with that contract, that’s a giant mess for #DaBears moving forward.
— Bill Zimmerman (@ZimmermanSXM) September 21, 2020
If Danny Trevathan has become the player he’s put on tape over the first two weeks of the season, and he chooses not to walk away from the game at season’s end (or earlier), the Bears will find themselves thigh deep in contractual quicksand soon enough. But that’s a conversation for the off-season. The Bears are in the thick of this season, their currently-undefeated 2020 campaign, and will face one of the game’s more prolific offenses Sunday in Atlanta. The Bears need to know now if Trevathan can still play. Not in 2021. This Sunday.
Because the game film suggests he can’t.
Week One featured Trevathan chasing backs in coverage and failing to shed blocks. Week Two was more of the same, just with severely limited playing time. All of the Trevathan traits fans have come to love – his dogged pursuit of ball carriers, ability to get sideline to sideline, ball awareness when sitting in the deep zone – are not present in 2020.
I texted someone close to the Chicago Bears organization.
This individual isn’t providing their own tape analysis. He is representing the viewpoint of someone inside Halas Hall.
Why is this pressing now?
Before Bill Belichick revolutionized professional football, teams did what they did. If you were a power running team, you power ran against everybody, stacked box or not. If you threw it 50 times a game, you did that even against the game’s best secondaries. Belichick pioneered the flexible scheme, orchestrating game plans designed to take away the individual opponent’s strengths and exploit their weaknesses.
Right now, Trevathan is an extreme liability. And while many would argue he’s not enough of a liability to cost the Bears a game, he almost did just that against Detroit two weeks ago on the final drive and could easily have done so last week if Chuck Pagano didn’t pull him off the field.
Trevathan played less than half the snaps against the Giants. How much more can the Bears reduce his role before embracing a potential truth.
Might. Be. Done.
