Chicago Bears: Buffalo Bills offer good test for Trubisky

The Chicago Bears take on the struggling Buffalo Bills who offer a surprisingly tough test for Mitch Trubisky.

Currently, the Chicago Bears sit as 10-point favorites to go into Southern Canada and beat the struggling Buffalo Bills. After Derek Anderson suffered a neck injury in their Monday Night loss to the New England Patriots, it appears J. Peterman of Seinfeld fame will be taking the reigns as the Bills’ signal-caller.

Alright, so I am over exaggerating a bit, but on some level, you have to admit J. Peterman might give the Bills a better chance to beat the Bears than Nathan Peterman, who will actually be starting for them.

Nevertheless, despite the Bills’ offensive futility — which could be the subject of a separate 10,000-word essay — this game offers a pretty good test for Mitch Trubisky, the Bears highly-scrutinized quarterback.

That’s because, on the other side of the ball, the Bills’ defense is pretty darn good. According to Pro Football Focus, they have an overall defensive grade of 77.9 good for 11th in the league. However, they are even better in getting pressure on the quarterback ranking 8th in the league with a grade of 72.

Trubisky has had a lot of difficulties when facing pressure and the blitz this season, coming in with a PFF grade of 28.6 and 29.3 respectively. While I’m not asking you to put your blind trust in PFF grades, even the famed “eye test” tells you he has struggled in these areas.

The Bills defense is extremely fast and will certainly look to exploit this weakness. Although Trubisky may catch a bit of a break with the Bills’ fast-rising rookie middle linebacker Tremaine Edmunds still in concussion protocol and questionable for Sunday’s game.

Nevertheless, Mitch will be walking into an extremely hostile environment as the Bills Mafia will look to have their own impact on the outcome of the game. Another area where Mitch has struggled is on the road, which is to be expected of young quarterbacks.

At home, he is 3-1 with 12 touchdowns and 4 interceptions. On the road, he’s 1-2 with 3 touchdowns and 2 interceptions. Those numbers must improve if the Bears hope to make a run at the playoffs as they will most likely need to beat the Bills, New York Giants, and San Francisco 49ers all on the road to have a shot.

That is why this game — for all of Buffalo’s struggles — is still very intriguing to me. I fully expect the Bears to come away with a victory. But what I am also hoping for, is that Trubisky comes away with invaluable experience and hopefully success against two things that have challenged him this year — road games and defensive pressure. So if you’re looking for a subplot to follow in a game that might not otherwise be that exciting, this is it.

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