Inside the Chicago Bears the courtship of Mitchell Trubisky

The Chicago Bears went to great lengths to hide their interest in rookie quarterback Mitchell Trubisky.

Around the same time that the Chicago Bears were being tied to former Texas Tech quarterback Patrick Mahomes, Bears’ general manager Ryan Pace was finalizing the decision to select North Carolina quarterback Mitchell Trubisky in the first round of the 2017 NFL Draft.

Bears’ general manager Ryan Pace went all CIA during the Bears’ courtship of Trubisky. In a feature in the Chicago Tribune on Sunday, Dan Wiederer shed light on the Bears’ covert operation to select Trubisky in the first round of the 2017 NFL Draft.

"As Pace does with all such get-to-know-you dinners, he asked Trubisky to pick the restaurant and make the reservation. It’s a minor request. But it often can be revealing of a player’s reliability.Pace also ordered Trubisky to keep the meeting top secret, so as not to tip off anyone — not any Tar Heels coaches or teammates, not any other NFL execs or agents, not even a campus meter maid — to the Bears’ interest."

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These events took place in mid-March. It was around this time that the Bears had signed veteran free agent quarterback Mike Glennon to a three-year contract. After the signing of Glennon, the initial belief was that the Bears would not be in the market for a quarterback in the first round of the draft. Even, if that were the case, the Bears were tied heavily to Clemson’s DeShaun Watson.

Trubisky passed Pace’s initial test and even had fun with it.

"The venue: Bin 54, a top steakhouse in North Carolina’s Triangle region. And to keep the gathering covert, Trubisky made the reservation for six under an alias: James McMahon.“I thought that was cool,” Pace says.All of Trubisky’s visitors from Chicago appreciated that touch. They took it as evidence of all they had been told about the 22-year-old quarterback never taking himself too seriously yet always focusing on the details.“That told me he was prepared, that he did his homework,” Loggains says. “You knew this moment wasn’t too big for him. He still was having fun with it.”"

What an impressive sense of detail Trubisky utilized why making the reservations for his dinner with the Bears. Using the name of the last quarterback to lead the Bears to a Super Bowl victory was a nice touch for a rookie quarterback that now has the same franchise on his shoulders.

The dinner and consequent workout that the Bears conducted with Trubisky was the final factor for Pace. Prior to meeting with Trubisky in March, Pace had already pinned him as the best quarterback prospect in the 2017 draft class.

"To be clear, the attraction to Trubisky as the potential savior to tug the franchise out of the quicksand of NFL mediocrity had started long before mid-March. For months, Pace had been convinced that Trubisky was the top quarterback in the draft. But for the longest time, he kept his evaluation to himself, not wanting to influence the assessments of his subordinates. Then, as the reports came trickling in — from area scout Chris Prescott, from national scout Ryan Kessenich, from college scouting director Mark Sadowski, from Lucas, from Loggains — the consensus energized Pace."

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Above anything, Pace showed conviction in his courting of Trubisky. It’s the same conviction that former Bears’ general manager Jerry Angelo showed when he traded for Jay Cutler in 2009. Unfortunately, that trade was the beginning of the end for Angelo’s tenure with the Bears. Pace is hoping for a different outcome in his scenario after pegging Mitchell Trubisky as the franchise quarterback of the Bears.

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