Ex-Tar Heel Mitch Trubisky went from worst to first in one game.
After throwing six touchdown passes in the Chicago Bears’ 48-10 romp over the fading Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Trubisky has warned future opponents not to let him sit back there and find an open receiver.
Big No. 10 was sacked once and pressured very little while completing 19 of 26 passes for 354 yards and those six TDs, which Trubisky hadn’t done since high school. The most Mitch tossed as a Tar Heel was five against Pitt in Kenan Stadium during his red-shirt junior season.
It is unlikely that NFL opponents will give Trubisky as much time to throw from now on as the Bucs, who tried to cover the Bears receivers downfield and failed miserably. When not facing pressure at all, Trubisky completed 19 passes and only left three incomplete. His quarterback rating was a spiffy 98.2, best in the NFL that week.
He threw only four times under any kind of duress against Tampa Bay, ending another successful run by journeyman Ryan Fitzpatrick, who was chased from the game in the second half. Jameis Winston saw his first action of the season and had a pretty good game in a lost cause, completing 16 of 20 passes in garbage time with one TD and two picks.
What a difference a week makes. Trubisky was coming off a mediocre performance against the woeful Arizona Cardinals when he completed 24 of 35 passes for no scores and one interception. His QB rating in that 16-14 win was 26.5, lower than his overall rookie season QB rating of 32.5, which was 29th in the NFL.
At 24 years and 41 days, Trubisky became the second-youngest quarterback to throw six touchdown passes in a game, behind only the Chiefs’ rising star Patrick Mahomes, who did so in Week 2 one day before his 23rd birthday. But Mahomes is part of a high-flying Kansas City offense, compared to the Bears more-balanced attack.
If Trubisky isn’t facing much pressure in the pocket, he certainly is off the field after being the second player picked in the 2017 NFL draft. Every Bears quarterback gets compared to Hall of Famer Jim McMahon, which is unfair, but now Trubisky has set a new standard for himself in Chicago.
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