Rozner: Is it time for the Bears to make Trubisky the starter?
On Thursday night in Green Bay, Mike Glennon became the fourth different Bears quarterback to start against the Packers in the last four meetings.
On Nov. 12 in Chicago, barring something shocking or injury-related, it will be five QBs in the last five starts against Green Bay.
It is just so Bears that the focused rage of the experts is on the head coach and starting quarterback, while the GM gets a free pass.
You're forgiven if this makes no sense to you.
It was GM Ryan Pace who brought in head coach John Fox and in three years has managed to acquire precious few impact players in a league where it only takes a few to make the playoffs, and where a coach can succeed only when he has those game-breakers.
Pace is also the guy who spent $18 million on Mike Glennon, yet such a brilliant expenditure is somehow irrelevant when he could have spent a single million on a placeholder that couldn't possibly be worse.
That's some serious scouting right there.
And the love for Mitch Trubisky is not at all unusual, but he's not played an NFL down and played only a single college season.
Amazing.
Regardless, Glennon was so bad again Thursday night that Trubisky's time is coming one way or another.
There are two logical opportunities to prepare the kid, and one would be right now, after Thursday's miserable loss in Green Bay, with 11 days until the Bears play again.
The other would be after the bye in November and heading into the second Green Bay game, which would give Trubisky two weeks to get ready for his first NFL start.
The better the Bears play and the longer Glennon survives, the better it is for Trubisky, who needs as much time as possible to learn the offense and learn to play the position at NFL speed.
There's no rush to start him when the offensive line is a question and the weapons around him are scarce, and Trubisky is fortunate that he's made it four games into this season without a start.
No less an expert than Aaron Rodgers said pretty much the same thing when he spoke to the Chicago media on a conference call in advance of the Thursday's mammoth tilt in Wisconsin.
“There's a lot of growth that can (occur) sitting on the bench,” Rodgers said. “You can really gain in confidence in practice.
“You can come along at your own speed and you're obviously not dealing with the pressure every week of having to perform, which is a real thing.
“You learn the league, learn how to be a professional and learn how to take care of your body.”
Rodgers was once a first-rounder who sat for three years behind Brett Favre. He spent his time figuring out how to complete a pass, so he doesn't think a few more weeks — or even a season — of watching is a bad thing.
“Work on fundamentals, work on footwork,” Rodgers said of his time on the scout team. “Try to get my timing down. Try to put some of the plays that we were running of the other team into our language, so you start to work on timing up drops with the receiver routes.
“Just going through your progressions and putting together some of the fronts with the shell and the coverage and the pressures, just trying to treat those like really important reps every day.”
Fox needs to win games in order to hang around, but Pace needs to justify his existence and everything hinges on whether Trubisky can play.
But what is best for Trubisky? There's nothing wrong with being thrown in if he's ready and has the physical skills to survive.
But does he have the support around him on the field? Does he know what he's supposed to do? Does he benefit more from being on the field, if being on the field puts him in danger?
These are all good questions and the Bears have 11 days now to decide if they have the right answers.
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