Preamble
This article is absolutely trivial when compared to the tragic events that occurred last night in Las Vegas. Having been a frequent visitor to Vegas over the past couple of years, I can imagine the terror that erupted when the shots began and bullets started raining down on the crowd. My thoughts and prayers go out to the victims and their families as they deal with the aftermath of this senseless and tragic act. It is my hope that we as a society begin to understand why people choose to do these things so that we can stop future events.
Although I was going to publish this yesterday, I’m glad I didn’t because I’m almost embarrassed to write an article about predicting football performance after yesterday’s trauma. For the record, Mike Glennon is a nice guy. I wish he could have played better for the Bears. The reality is that the Bears GM Ryan Pace undermined him (and doomed him to failure) before he even had a chance to be a good player for them. That happened the moment Pace drafted Mitch Trubisky. I hope that Mitch is able to perform better than Mike was able to.
Introduction
In Part 1 of this series (April, 2017), I used some old work from my buddy Andy Kriebel to express my discontent of the Chicago Bears selecting Mike Glennon as their new quarterback. As time has now passed, it appears that my predictive acumen was nicely aligned with the future events.
Let’s Look At My Predictions
Regarding the Mike Glennon pick for the next Chicago Bears quarterback, I wrote the following messages to my friend on March 9, 2017, which was about 1.5 months before the NFL draft occurred.
Three minutes later, I wrote the following about Deshaun Watson from Clemson.
Of course, I had no idea that the Bears would be drafting Mitch Trubisky at number 2 a month and a half later, on April 27th, 2017. I did suspect that they would not be drafting Watson with the #3 pick because the all the brilliant football analysts said he wasn’t talented enough to be drafted that high. I suspected that they were wrong about Watson.
Fast Forward Seven Months
In my original article, I also referenced an interesting piece that focused on the Bears selecting Mitch T with the 2nd pick of the draft. Time will tell if that decision is a good one, but their first decision to pay Glennon has already blown up in their face, as they have started the season 1-3.
I jokingly said that Mark Sanchez better not teach Glennon to commit 50 turnovers in a season! Well, I might have been right about that joke, as Glennon already has been an unprecedented turnover machine!
Glennon’s play has been so bad so far, that one football scout proclaimed the following:
Since I don’t get paid any money to pick NFL players, I must not be qualified to offer an opinion. However, since I did say that the Bears should have picked Deshaun Watson as their future QB, we can look at some results from today to see how he is doing:
How about looking at some stats through 4 games?
Well, we see Mr. Watson sits at #1 in Total QBR while Glennon is down at #28. He is sandwiched between Jay Cutler at #27 and Brian Hoyer at #31, the Bears QB’s from last season. Apparently, Glennon has not been a QB improvement for the Bears, but Deshaun Watson is having some early career success. Somehow, this does not surprise me.
Tonight I heard Jimmy Johnson (former Cowboys coach) proclaim the following: Deshaun Watson should have been the #1 pick of the draft this year! Well, Jimmy, hindsight is 20-20, but being able to make future predictions takes real talent.
Upcoming in Part 3
Will there be a part 3 to this article? If John Fox quits being stubborn and accepts the fact that the Bears wasted 17 million on Glennon, maybe we will get a chance to see Mitch T in action. Maybe Foxey should read the article I show above to see how the Texans offense played much better after Watson replaced Savage in the second half of the first game!
I traveled to Nashville for game 3 of the pre-season, in which Mitch T started the second half of the game and played very nicely. It was obvious to me that he has the chance to be a great quarterback. Despite not having great wide receivers around him, there is enough talent on the Bears team with Howard, Cohen, and a few others to give Trubisky (#10) a chance at success.
The Following Week (10/9/17)
One week later… Mitch Trubisky starts tonight on Monday night football. Certainly, he is going to do better than the past three Bears quarterbacks (#29, 30, 31) shown below in the newest TotalQBR Ranking. Watson continues to shine and remains #1 in Total QBR, with a significant improvement in his score.
The Following Week (10/15/17)
Watson continues to shine, Trubisky earned his first win in his second start. Here is how they did.
Two Additional Weeks Have Passed (10/31/17)
Watson continues to excel through the first 8 weeks of the season. Big surprise! Meanwhile, Trubisky isn’t even on this list after having played 4 games.
