Haiku One
He is forty-three,
with hair of a younger man.
A goat in all things.
Haiku Two
As his nerves jangle,
Bruce lifts a scotch to his lips.
“Calm down, baby. Calm.”
Haiku(s) Three
He came from Texas.
In a town known as Tyler,
Was the legend born.
In just his fourth year,
He seeks his second title,
Immortality.
Patrick Mahomes didn’t even have to sweat.
The 2019 version of the Chicago Bears defense was very good. Not as good as the team’s 2018 defense, but certainly among the better units in the league. They had, for the most part, shut Aaron Rodgers down a week before, but Mahomes was different.
The stat line wasn’t amazing. Mahomes completed 23-of-33 passes for 241 yards and two touchdowns. He ran for another score. It was as ho-hum as three-touchdown games get. But the numbers don’t tell the entire story.
The Bears defense didn’t play poorly.
It was among Khalil Mack’s better efforts, turning Kansas City’s offensive tackles inside out numerous times.
It didn’t matter.
Mahomes was able to step up, move to his right or his left and use different arm angles to deliver passes right on the money. Wide receivers that shouldn’t have been open were because Mahomes can make throws no other quarterback thinks about. Mahomes is just better than any quarterback we’ve ever seen.
This week, each of DBB’s writers – myself, Andrew, Data and Emily – will be writing their own Super Bowl preview post. Then Friday we’ll culminate the week with a gambling guide, as no sporting contest played all year presents this many opportunities to lose money.
Legacies in the NFL are a tricky thing, for quarterbacks and coaches.
Aaron Rodgers and Drew Brees are two of the most prolifically-talented winners in the history of the NFL. But as each approach the twilight of their careers, their legacies are complicated by only appearing in one Super Bowl a piece.
Eli Manning is, by every conceivable metric, a quarterbacking mediocrity. But for two months, for two playoff runs, he was an immortal. And now, no Giant will ever wear his number again. One of the most storied franchises in the NFL is retiring the number of a quarterback who was .500 as a starter and pitched a career quarterback rating of 84.1.
One Super Bowl victory is pivotal for the great coaches and quarterbacks. It stamps their career as valid. The second Super Bowl stamps their greatness. Three or more are reserved for the legends of the game.
Tony Dungy finally got his Super Bowl title. Two years later, he retired from the game, never to return. Bill Parcells hunted a third title for decades. Mike Holmgren a second. They knew what they needed to achieve to be remembered as they wished.
Andy Reid is 207-128 as a head coach, a .618 winning percentage. That’s better than Parcells. That’s better than Holmgren. Hell, Joe Gibbs is only at .621 and I think Gibbs is one of the two or three best coaches in the history of the league. (Gibbs has three Super Bowls, with three different quarterbacks, and none of those quarterbacks were particularly good.)
This column comes not to defend the quarterback of the Chicago Bears because the quarterback of the Chicago Bears requires no defense. This column comes to defend three elements missing from modern sports discourse: patience, perspective and rational thought.
Mitch Trubisky is an inexperienced signal caller in his second year. Sunday was his 18th start – his sixth in a new, complicated offensive system. Through this period there have been plenty of good and plenty of bad to evaluate in the kid’s performances. And that puts Trubisky in the same category as just about every other young quarterback to come through the ranks of the NFL; a fact seemingly lost on the many social media football fans who believe Sean is the patriarch of the McVay Football Family.
Aaron Rodgers and Steve McNair were non-existent at this point in their NFL careers. Troy Aikman and Peyton Manning were throwing the ball to the other team far more than their own. Drew Brees, the league’s all-time passing leader, was so mediocre his team took a quarterback number one overall after his third season.
But fans are in a panic. Why? Because Patrick Mahomes has been an exception to this general rule. But the pre-professional experience of Mahomes/Trubisky should not be discounted. Mahomes threw 1,349 passes at Texas Tech. Trubisky threw 572 at North Carolina. The difference? Roughly Sam Darnold’s career at USC. As a current NFL GM texted me Monday, “You couldn’t draw up a better developmental path for a young QB than what Mahomes got.” Trubisky got a year of hand it off, hand it off, dodge a sack on third-and-long.
Nobody is arguing Trubisky is going to be better than Mahomes. But, honestly, who gives a shit? It’s not like Mahomes is in Detroit! Barring the two clubs both ending up in the Super Bowl, these two quarterbacks will be on the same field in their careers what, three times if both stick in the league for a decade plus?
(Side note: Notice nobody is yelling about taking Trubisky over Deshaun Watson anymore? That’s because Watson doesn’t look like he’s even going to physically make it to the end of his rookie contract. Sadly, many of us predicted this due to his frame and playing style. The league needs more Watsons, not less. But Watson should be a warning: the first seven games of one’s career do not a career make.)
Trubisky has work to do over the final ten games of 2018 because (a) he needs to get better, (b) the Bears can still achieve things this season and (c) the organization is building massive momentum for next season. And since I’m in a Paul Simon mood these days, I’m using the music legend to frame the discussion.
Accuracy has been Trubisky’s biggest issue through the first six games of the 2018 season and it’s been two routes in particular that have given him issues: the quick, mid-range out and the deep vertical, specifically over the middle.
Here’s the fact, though: Trubisky is not an inaccurate passer. He’s completing 65.9% of his passes, which is a higher rate than Ben Roethlisberger, Pat Mahomes, Andrew Luck and Russell Wilson. And Trubisky is not tossing screens or easy dump-offs, even though he probably should be throwing more of both. He’s throwing the ball down the field. Just as he’s 15th in completion percentage, he’s 15th in yards-per-attempt.
Have spent the last two weeks exchanging texts and emails with my two league sources. This is not a good time to gather information but here’s what I think is happening.
