Chicago Bears: So you don’t think Trubisky can throw left?

Why do so many people think Chicago Bears quarterback Mitchell Trubisky can’t throw to his left and are they correct?

There is a narrative floating around about Chicago Bears quarterback Mitchell Trubisky. Well, let me back up. There are an infinite number of narratives going around about Mitchell Trubisky — most of them not borne out of fact, but rather bias or a flawed opinion.

However, there is one in particular that has seemed to gain a lot of traction on social media like most myths tend to. Funny how Twitter can absolutely convince you something is absolutely true until you look at those — oh what are those pesky things called again? Oh yeah, facts.

Once you start analyzing those, you quickly come to the realization that the thing you believe with conviction is false. Then, you start to wonder, ‘why did I believe it in the first place?’ This question will likely lead to another, which is, ‘where did the narrative come from, to begin with?’

Look, I can’t help you with the first question — that will require some personal reflection, but it’s likely because you’ve been beaten over the head with the narrative. Unfortunately, I can’t really help you with the second question either because, candidly, I don’t know who to credit (or fault really) with starting this ridiculous narrative. Though I can say Twitter largely credits Arif Hasan with starting this silly narrative.

However, I can help you with debunking the idea that Mitch Trubisky cannot throw to his left. Now to be clear, the false narrative is not rooted in any kind of nuance. In other words, the narrative isn’t “Trubisky has difficulty or is below league average throwing to his left in these situations or these distances.” That would be a measured opinion that could at least partially be supported by those things called facts that we talked about earlier.

But no — this narrative states unequivocally and without qualification that Trubisky simply cannot throw in that direction, regardless of the conditions. So I went out to see for myself by looking at some data (also known as evidence or facts) to see where they might have come up with this absurd idea. While I did not find evidence to help me understand the narrative’s genesis, I did find plenty of evidence to confirm its inaccuracy.

To do so, I took advantage of the data made available (to anyone with good internet connectivity) by the good folks at ESPN’s Next Gen Stats. The data they provide is terrific, in particular, their QB grids, which breakdown a quarterback’s passer rating by direction and distance.

I took a look at some quarterbacks who would be considered Trubisky’s peers from an experience/ expectations standpoint like Deshaun Watson, Baker Mayfield, Dak Prescott, against whom Trubisky is often compared. I also included some more experienced veterans like Tom Brady, Matthew Stafford, and Aaron Rodgers (only 2017 data was available), just to give additional context on how more experienced quarterbacks who are held in high regard across the league perform when throwing to the left.

The data below represents the respective quarterbacks’ total passer rating on throws to the left, broken down into four separate distance groups. Those groups are behind the line of scrimmage, line of scrimmage to 10 yards, 10-20 yards, and more than 20 yards.

Some interesting observations can be made from the data.

To begin, there is room to criticize Trubisky when throwing left, but the criticism must be fair and nuanced. It is fair to say Trubisky does struggle to throw to his left for more than 20 yards and that is an area in which he must improve this season. However, his passer rating of 65.5 was still within the league average and higher than Brady’s and Rodgers’ (in 2017).

Additionally, a quarterbacks’ bread and butter is going to be in the 10-20 yard range. That’s where you hope to see their highest passer rating. If a quarterback can consistently hit those intermediate routes, they will move the chains and march the offense down the field. In this area, Trubisky performed well with an above league average rating of 95.1. While far short of Watson and Brady in this category, he was higher than Stafford, Mayfield, and Prescott, and just two points shy of Rodgers.

https://twitter.com/P_Shels/status/1164187200675885056?s=20

Ironically though, you don’t hear anyone harping on Stafford’s, Mayfield’s, Prescott’s or Rodgers’ inability to throw left. Again, you would like this rating to be north of 100, and Trubisky can certainly improve here as well, but he certainly isn’t anywhere near a rating that would warrant a claim that “he can’t throw left.”

There is even less of a disparity between Trubisky’s rating and that of the other quarterbacks when looking at the remaining two categories. Again though, you don’t hear this false narrative perpetuated about these other quarterbacks.

So is this narrative a result of inherent bias? Possibly. It could also be a means to justify a pre-existing opinion about Trubisky. However, in my opinion, it is most likely due to taking a few throws out of context and making a sweeping generalization off of them. It can become easy to fall for this trap. When you constantly see the same thing broadcast across Twitter, you may have a tendency to assume the occurrence of such an event is greater than it actually is. Said another way, the event isn’t happening more often, you’re just seeing it more often.

Let’s use an example you might be familiar with. Remember in 2001 when a young boy from Florida was attacked by a shark and there was mass hysteria over a spike in shark attacks? The media went so far as to declare it the “Summer of the Shark.” You’d have thought attacks had spiked by over 100 percent. However, the data actually showed a decrease in unprovoked shark attacks from the previous year. But because you were inundated with the same narrative, you may have come to believe it truly was the “Summer of the Shark.”

Look, if we want to have a fair and honest debate about areas in which Trubisky can improve, I’m all for it. But let’s all agree to stop advancing this ridiculous narrative before it comes back to bite you in the ‘you know what’ — kind of like — well, a shark.