Whether he’d played well in the preseason or not, Bears coach John Fox maintained throughout the summer that Mike Glennon would be the team’s starting quarterback once the regular season got underway but he was less forthcoming about the question of which of his other two quarterbacks would be serving as the backup.
Fox gave up the secret on Wednesday. Rookie Mitch Trubisky will be the No. 2 quarterback when the Bears host the Falcons on Sunday. That leaves Mark Sanchez as the third quarterback.
“It’s not something we handed him. He earned it. That was the biggest reason,” Fox said, via David Haugh of the Chicago Tribune.
When Fox demurred about naming a backup earlier this week, he said the team wanted to continue Trubisky’s development and talked about the reps he could get running the scout team in practice. That’s generally the job of the third quarterback, but the Bears can handle things differently so they feel more confident that the second overall pick is ready to make one more step up the ladder when and if needed this season.
