If there was one dominant theme that ran through the care and feeding of Mitchell Trubisky through the 2018 off- and preseason, it was that his coach, who had an intriguing mix of patience vs. impatience, control vs. living on the edge, was willing to live with mistakes, as long as the young quarterback didn’t make the same ones twice.

If there is a recurring thread running through Trubisky as this rookie season in Matt Nagy’s system has played out, it is that Trubisky is not afraid of the risk-taking that can spawn mistakes, but that those mistakes aren’t repeated.

A huge, strategic case study in that regard was evident in Sunday’s 24-17 win over the Green Bay Packers. Trubisky had made a massive “mistake” the week before when he went into the game against the Los Angeles Rams with the throttle wide open – too wide open as it turned out. What resulted, for all of Trubisky’s being in personal hyper-drive, was the worst game of his career.

More important than the outcome of that game and Sunday’s was the return of the “Pretty Boy Assassin,” the complimentary name the defense hung on Trubisky last year because of his well-intentioned torching he occasionally put on a top defense while running scout team against it.

In a game with arguably greater import than the Rams game, because of its division- and playoff-clinching implications, Trubisky returned to the executioner mindset that he brought to his work last year. He managed the game without being a game manager and understood his mistake of the week before, and didn’t repeat it.

“What jumped out to me [after watching game film] was how great of a game that Mitch played,” Nagy said. “He felt like he might’ve put a little bit too much on his shoulders that last week. And so he was really calm and relaxed. His demeanor throughout the game, the times that I saw him, and I know just talking to the coaches on the sideline that he was just cool as a cucumber yesterday.”

Teammates saw the same thing: “I don't think he went and did anything crazy,” said wide receiver Allen Robinson, whose long gainers of 30 and 19 yards came on short, high-percentage throws in the first half. “He went out there and he was Mitchell Trubisky. He led us to the NFC North Championship."

Trubisky made two “assassin” statements against the Packers. One was the entire first half, in which Trubisky shook off three point-less possessions in the Bears’ first four, then took his team 61 yards for a touchdown just before halftime for a 14-3 lead.

The second came when the Packers drew even at 14-14 in the third quarter. A Tarik Cohen fumble stymied the ensuing Bears possession deep in the Green Bay end, but after a defensive stop, Trubisky directed the offense on drives for a touchdown and field goal on consecutive fourth-quarter possessions for the win.

The latter looms significant because fourth quarters have been the weakest for Trubisky’s career – lowest passer rating (77.1), highest interception rate (3.7 percent), lowest yards per attempt (6.3). Against the Packers, with the game on the line, Trubisky calmly completed all four of his fourth-quarter pass attempts, took no sacks and threw zero interceptions.

“Hopefully you're going to see less sacks, the ball out, completion percentage higher,” Nagy said, “because he knows where to go, and maybe less scrambling.”





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Win one for the old guy

Amid the aftershocks of the Sunday win, it was difficult not to have a special feel-good for Sherrick McManis. The defensive back is the longest-tenured Bear, coming in 2012 via trade with the Houston Texans, with whom McManis had reached the playoffs the prior year (McManis’ second), just missed in 2012 when the 10-6 Bears fell short in Lovie Smith’s last season and has since toiled through the down years of Marc Trestman and John Fox before the rebirth this year under Matt Nagy.

McManis has stayed in the NFL with his prowess on special teams but now becomes a key figure in the defense, stepping in at nickel cornerback in the wake of Bryce Callahan’s season-ending foot injury. McManis played 62 of the 68 (91 percent) Green Bay snaps and contributed a pair of solo tackles, a quarterback hit on a blitz and two pass breakups.

Afterwards, the reality of the long wait for his personal return to the playoffs was still sinking in.

“I’m always hopeful, always optimistic,” he said, managing a smile, “[but] never thought it would be this long,”

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Culture shock = culture change

The 2018 Bears season has been about a second entire culture makeover in the span of four years. It’s been about a coaching change that involved a de facto complete refocusing of on-field mindsets and behaviors. It’s been about the development of not only a franchise quarterback, but also virtually the entire offensive landscape.

None of that happens without a belief in the quarterback, which the Bears haven’t often had over the past couple decades – in 2001 with Jim Miller, in 2013 with Josh McCown, sporadically but not definitively with Jay Cutler.

But Mitchell Trubisky has changed that, not so much with his play, although that is the ultimate first building block, but also with state of mind and business off the field.

“The mindset for me was just put [a bad game vs. the Rams] behind me and come out here and do my job,” Trubisky said. “You don't have to do anything special, just do exactly what you do in practice and go out there and play with confidence because the guys around me they have, they believe in me and they have confidence in me, so why would I not go out there and be confident in myself as well?

“That's what I wanted to do, that's what I wanted to show to my guys and just be there for them. So I feel like I did my part [against Green Bay] and my teammates had my back and I had theirs.”