Chicago Bears: Why are Mitch Trubisky and Sam Darnold viewed so differently?

Sam Darnold rolls into town to take on Mitch Trubisky and the Chicago Bears. Why are the two quarterbacks viewed so differently?

Mitch Trubisky and the Chicago Bears face a crucial matchup Sunday against the New York Jets and rookie “sensation” Sam Darnold. I put sensation in quotation marks because while Darnold is receiving a ton of praise from analysts, there is a little bit of a disconnect between perception and reality.

Trubisky, on the other hand, is evaluated from throw to throw. Each pass is dissected with the same level of scrutiny as the Zapruder film. He can go from “the future of this franchise” to a “bust” within a series.

So why is the perception of these two players among fans and experts so different? Why is Darnold being billed as a future franchise quarterback while Trubisky is viewed as a giant question mark? Do the stats justify this disparity? The short answer is ‘no.’

I know what you’re going to say — but Trubisky is a second-year quarterback and Darnold is a rookie so that comparison is not fair. To that, I’d say a couple of things.

First, Trubisky faced the same level of scrutiny last season he is this year despite similar numbers to the ones Darnold is putting up. Last season, in 12 games, Trubisky completed 59 percent of his passes and had a 1:1 touchdown/interception ratio. This season, Darnold is completing 56 percent of his passes with a 1:1 touchdown/interception ratio.

Second, Trubsiky’s statistics are so much better than Darnold’s that it makes the disparate treatment of the two that much more puzzling.

Before we get to Trubisky’s stats this season, I want to give you another set of statistics. They are 59.8 completion percentage, 3,201 yards, 19 touchdowns, 15 interceptions, and 248 rushing yards. Any clue whose statistics those are? Huge bonus points if you guess correctly.

So that was a bit of a trick question because they are not actual statistics. Rather, they are what one expert projected would be Trubisky’s statistics over the course of the entire 2018 season. Now let’s look at Trubisky’s actual stats: 65.9 completion percentage, 1,594 yards, 13 touchdowns, 6 interceptions, and 245 rushing yards.

Trubisky is on pace to absolutely shatter those projections from the preseason. What’s more is that Trubisky’s numbers are very much in line with Jared Goff‘s from 2017, which has been a popular comparison drawn by many in the media.

So Trubisky is exceeding preseason projections, and on par with the benchmark most had set for him prior to the season in terms of growth (Goff’s jump from year one to year two) and yet the level of negativity around Mitch has swelled.

On the other hand, Darnold is being hailed as a future franchise quarterback despite having rather pedestrian numbers. Why? It’s tough to say but one possible explanation is that Darnold came out of the gate hot. With the exception of throwing his first pass for a pick-six, he had a dominant opening game, going 16-21 for 198 yards, 2 touchdowns, 1 interception, and a 116.8 passer rating. Perhaps he is still treading on that performance and getting the benefit of the doubt.

Another possible explanation is the idea of confirmation bias, or the tendency to favor information that confirms a previously held belief. Coming into the 2017 NFL Draft, experts were not high on the quarterback class, but more specifically Trubisky. They surely thought he was a reach at No. 2 overall. The media darling of that class was Deshaun Watson. While Watson had a tremendous rookie campaign before suffering a season-ending injury, he has significantly come back down to earth.

You don’t hear many pundits commenting on his second-year regression. You do, however, hear plenty of them criticize Trubisky’s “failures” despite being on pace for a better season than Watson, who is in his second year with the same offensive scheme.

Darnold was also the media darling of this year’s quarterback class. Many believed he was the best signal-caller in the class. Again, analysts want their previously held beliefs to be correct, and so they favor the information that supports that belief. Holding up Darnold and Watson as better than Trubisky is in line with that approach.

Has Trubisky struggled at times this season? Sure he has. But has he also experienced significant growth? Of course, he has. And is he also on pace to shatter even the most optimistic projections for 2018? You bet he is. So when he faces off against Darnold at Soldier Field this weekend, maybe the “analysts” will start to recognize the player on the field who is already flashing the potential of a franchise quarterback.