Can facing the Lions for the second time benefit Mitchell Trubisky?

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The Bears’ trip to Detroit this weekend carries a little extra intrigue for Mitchell Trubisky, not only because he’s coming off the best game of his career but because it represents his first opportunity to play a team for the second time in a season. 

Trubisky completed 18 of 30 passes for 179 yards with a touchdown, 53 rushing yards and a lost fumble on Nov. 19 against the Detroit Lions at Soldier Field. It was a decent game for the rookie quarterback punctuated by his 19-yard scramble on fourth down that set up Connor Barth’s missed game-tying field goal. 

That game was always going to be something on which Trubisky could build going into Saturday’s date with the Lions at Ford Field, though it doesn’t necessarily give him an edge in facing the same defense twice, offensive coordinator Dowell Loggains said. 

“There’s a record of how that defensive coordinator played you for the first time,” Loggains said. “… We get a lot of different coverages the first time playing a rookie quarterback, and with our run game, people trying to stop those things. Now for the first time he’s going to get to see a defensive coordinator twice. He’s obviously going to be able to study how they played him last time.”

Lions defensive coordinator Teryl Austin — who’s been the recipient of some head coaching buzz — will likely give Trubisky a different look this weekend than he did in mid-November. But as opposed to Trubisky’s previous nine starts, in which defenses frequently showed him looks they hadn’t put on tape before, the Bears’ rookie will at least have a general idea of the tendencies of his opponent based on experience. 

For what it’s worth, Carson Wentz generally had more success when facing an opponent for the second time in a season as a rookie last year. His passer ratings in those six games against divisional opponents:

Washington: 77.7, 86.7
Dallas: 91.4, 93.7
New York: 64.5, 70.1

If the same happens for Trubisky on Saturday, it would represent another step in the right direction in his long-term growth. 

“It will be good because we’ve got a lot of film on them especially from the matchup we played them,” Trubisky said. “So preparation is very important this week, just getting a good tell on them, what they’ve been running.  So really first, second down and third down is going to be crucial. We want to stay on the field to again convert third downs and come away with more points. Last time a couple times the penalties got us and that one turnover. 

“So we’re just going to take care of the football and play our game and hopefully we can take all of the positives we did from the last game and carry them over to this game coming up.”

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