Chicago Bears - Fantasy News

Is Mitch Trubisky a Viable Fantasy Starter for Chicago Bears?

by Adam Markowitz

10/2/17

NFL

Chicago Bears

Mitchell Trubisky

The Chicago Bears are officially making a change at the quarterback position. Mike Glennon's days as the starter are numbered, as the Bears are turning their franchise over to Mitch Trubisky, who will lead the team against the Minnesota Vikings next week on Monday Night Football.

The choice to change to Trubisky is one that almost had to be made in the Windy City regardless of whether John Fox really thinks he's ready to start or not. The Houston Texans have had far too much success with Deshaun Watson under center to leave a man drafted 10 slots before him on the bench when this offense looks as bad as it does.

Glennon has been a disaster in Dober fantasy games thus far this season. He has averaged just 8.68 Dober Fantasy Points per game, No. 31 overall in the NFL. He just barely beat his Projected Fantasy Points total in Week 1 of the season against Atlanta, logging 12.52 DFP against a PFP of 11.50. Since then, Glennon has scored 11.04, 6.44 and 4.72 DFP.

Though fantasy stats don't always translate directly into real life, the product on the field is getting noticeably worse in Chicago. Glennon completed a grand total of one pass to a wide receiver in a 23-17 win over Pittsburgh two weeks ago, and last week's 35-14 loss to the Packers was the most embarrassing showing of the year for this offense overall.

Glennon has turned the ball over eight times in just four games, and he's averaging a career-low 5.95 yards per pass attempt. A quarterback rating of 76.9 isn't good enough in this league either.

Simply put, Trubisky can't be much worse than this.

The rookie from North Carolina always had a high completion percentage and was generally careful with the football. In his 571 pass attempts in college, Trubisky threw just 10 interceptions, a pick rate of 1.76 percent.

Though he doesn't have the biggest arm in this rookie class by any stretch of the imagination, the fact that he's such a cerebral quarterback actually makes a lot of sense in Chicago. Whether it made sense to trade up from the No. 3 slot to the No. 2 pick to take him is a different question, but Fox's conservative offense with Trubisky's careful nature seem to be a match made in heaven.

The real question is whether it will work in practice.

Fox has had a history of turning chicken poo into chicken salad at the quarterback position. He developed an offense around Tim Tebow's noodle of an arm in Denver, and he took Jake Delhomme to a Super Bowl in Carolina. Working with someone as talented as Trubisky should be a cinch in relation to those cases.

But there still has to be a concern that Fox wasn't willing to start Trubisky right away. Granted, Fox is of the old school that he just doesn't believe that rookies should be starting in the NFL in their first season in the league. Even still, Trubisky was clearly the best quarterback on the team in the preseason, completing 67.9 percent of his passes for 364 yards and three touchdowns on just 53 attempts.

Glennon had a PFP of 10.0 for the matchup against the Vikings on Monday Night Football, and Trubisky figures to have a comparable figure to try to beat at Dober Games.