Former Bear Ripped Matt Nagy For Benching Mitch Trubisky

Matt Nagy made the decision a lot of people saw coming. When the Chicago Bears traded for Nick Foles, the feeling was it was just a matter of time before he saw the field. Mitch Trubisky won the training camp competition. Something he deserves credit for. Even so, it was felt the leash on him would be short. If the Bears saw signs of 2019? The hook wouldn’t be far behind.

Sure enough, after a dismal first half followed by an ugly interception in the 3rd quarter, Nagy made the switch. Foles went in, threw three touchdown passes in the 4th quarter, and won the game 30-26. Now he is the official starter moving forward. Most people are ready to accept that for logical reasons. How he played of course but also his deeper knowledge and mastery of the system.

At least one person though doesn’t buy Nagy’s reasoning.

Mark Sanchez spent a season with the Bears in 2017. He became a teammate and friend of Trubisky during that time. The two have remained in close contact ever since. When speaking on the Pat McAfee Show, he wasn’t shy about expressing his shock and disappointment at the decision.

“I just, I thought it was so crappy. He was playing okay. He was playing pretty well. I mean the interception he threw? Unless he just missed a bunch of run checks that we don’t know about. I mean you could go back and watch the tape but they were competitive. They were in the game and they were playing Atlanta who finds a way to lose these games in the 3rd and 4th quarter, right? Why hit the panic button after one interception?

So that really shocked me and it was really unfortunate.”

Sanchez explained that the interception being the reason makes no sense because it looked like there was a miscommunication between Trubisky and Jimmy Graham, the intended target. He called it a two-way street in terms of responsibility.

“If that’s the reason he got pulled? That’s crazy. That one throw? That’s BS.”

Matt Nagy has high standard and Mitch never met them

The reality is that interception wasn’t the main reason Trubisky got benched. It was merely the final one. This decision was something that had been building for a lot longer than people realize. Most likely since the start of the 2019 season and that awful opener against Green Bay. It felt like the head coach began to cool on the quarterback steadily after that.

There was the on-screen blowup against Washington. That atrocious game against the Saints that clearly had Nagy fuming. Those two 4th quarter turnovers against the Chargers and then his sadly useless performance vs. the Rams. The one where people though Nagy benched him the first time before an injury was revealed.

Don’t get it twisted. This moment had been building for several months. All Nagy needed was an escape plan for when it happened. That came together when the Foles trade went down. Sanchez may not agree with the decision because Trubisky wasn’t playing that bad.

He needs to understand one thing. For Nagy? Not that bad isn’t good enough.