Two separate practices have been taking place this week at Halas Hall, one for the guys who will play in Thursday’s preseason finale against the Buffalo Bills and another for those whose focus is squarely on the Green Bay Packers.
That means, for the first time, Matt Nagy and Mitch Trubisky are gameplanning for a regular season opponent together. The Bears hired Nagy in large part due to his prior quarterback-centric work, and envisioned tethering him to their 2017 second overall pick for years to come. And while the true judge of that relationship will be in Trubisky’s production and the team’s wins and losses, so far, that pairing has been successful.
“We think very, very similarly, so that helps,” Trubisky said. “We're both similar in that we want to stretch the ball down the field, get the ball to our playmakers, just let this offense be efficient. We haven't had any clashing. It's way more collaborative and cooperative.”
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Gameplanning for Week 1 means having Nagy and his coaching staff take a mountain of “installation phase” practice reps and whittle them down to ones specifically tailored to the Bears’ offense, as well as the Packers’ defense. More important than anything for Nagy is finding plays Trubisky is at least comfortable running, and preferably of which he has “total command,” which was the operative term used by offensive coordinator Mark Helfrich earlier this month.
“I feel very good about where he’s at with this system right now,” Nagy said. “He’s comfortable and that’s what matters most, he’s comfortable and then we’re comfortable and then the other part of it was with the timing with these new guys that are here and I think he’s really starting to grow with that each and every day. So for him that’s really what I think is most important.”
There’s a give-and-take that exists between Nagy and Trubisky, though, mostly on the coach’s side of things. For instance: Nagy or offensive coordinator Mark Helfrich may have a play they like, but if Trubisky isn’t comfortable running it and/or hasn’t been effective operating it in practice, they’re not going to force it on their young quarterback.
Meaning: This is an offense that will be specifically tailored to Trubisky and what he does best. And that means the full scope of what this offense can do hasn’t been realized yet, but that’s not a bad thing from Nagy’s point of view.
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“He's everywhere where I thought he'd be at this point in time,” Nagy said. “He's not where he's going to be at in the end of this thing. Again, it's going to take some time to where he's just completely rolling. He's not there yet but he's where he needs to be at this point in time from where we were in OTAs and training camp.
“If you asked me when I first got this job will he be where he's at now, will he be better than that or worse than that, I would say (he’s) right where he needs to be at this point in time.”
Nagy and Trubisky finally have reached the exciting point of the offseason. All those installation reps are in the rearview mirror, and this team is finally ready to see what an offense tailored to its quarterback can do.
Green Bay week isn’t officially here, but at Halas Hall this week, it might’ve well have been.
“We're starting to get really specific just looking at the Packers and get ready for Week 1,” Trubisky said. “You start to see a lot more detail and a lot more game-specific planning based on what they're doing and what we can do as an offense. Everything is a lot more specific so it allows us to play faster as an offense and it allows me to operate faster as a quarterback so the more specific we get, it'll be better for this offense I think. Go do our offense and execute based off what they give us.”
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