Chicago Bears: Has the pocket presence of Mitch Trubisky gotten worse?

Preseason: the good

I know it’s preseason. Sure, preseason does not determine who will be good and who will be bad, but there are certain elements you can take away from those games. One thing that I took away was how tough he is to sack. In the first preseason game, Trubisky faced the Denver Broncos and entered the game in a two minute situation before halftime.

On this play, tight end Daniel Brown whiffs on his block. Trubisky, immediately, feels the pressure and slides up in the pocket and runs away for yardage with his legs.

This is a simple play for a quarterback, but impressive for a rookie. Trubisky slides up in the pocket, once again, while keeping his eyes down the field. This allows him to find the easy check-down.

On this play, there do not appear to be any open receivers. Trubisky goes through his progressions and makes up his mind to make a play with his legs. This is almost identical to a play he made against the Vikings, which I will show you.

On this play, the Titans blitz Trubisky on third down. He stood tall in the face of pressure and delivered a strike. While it was a little high to Kevin White, it showed me that he did not crumble against the blitz. Obviously, a good sign.

Once again, this is a video of Trubisky going through his progressions. When he does not see anyone open, he sees an opening and takes off. Positive plays are key.

On this play, the Titans send a blitz at Trubisky, who calmly gives the Titan the dead shoulder. Trubisky is able to then scramble to his right, while keeping his eyes downfield. He throws a perfect pass to Victor Cruz, who dropped it.

As you can see, Trubisky shows great poise and pocket awareness. He is awfully tough to bring down, which makes what is happening right now so startling. Before I get to that, let me show you some more of his strong pocket presence from his first couple regular season games.