The Bears said when they signed Mike Glennon that he is their starting quarterback, and they continued to say after drafting Mitchell Trubisky that Glennon is their starting quarterback. But teams say one thing and do another all the time, and no one should be surprised if it’s Trubisky, not Glennon, under center when the Bears host the Falcons in Week One.
Last year, the Eagles spent months saying Carson Wentz would be a third-stringer throughout his rookie season -- and then in September they traded Sam Bradford, demoted Chase Daniel and announced that Wentz would start. In 2014, the Jaguars insisted from draft day through the start of the regular season that Blake Bortles would spend his entire rookie year on the sideline -- and then in September they gave Bortles the starting job.
John Mullin, who’s been covering Bears training camp at CSN Chicago, said this morning on PFT Live that Glennon is “well ahead” of Trubisky right now, but that could change if Trubisky outplays Glennon in the preseason.
“It would not stun me to have this kid really flash in preseason and win the job outright,” Mullin said of Trubisky. “I don’t think it’s going to happen but it wouldn’t stun me. You see them alongside each other, you see them trading off the reps and so forth. Trubisky’s got the ‘it’ factor. I’ve seen a lot of quarterbacks and this kid’s got something to him. You don’t see that with Glennon. This kid, when he’s on the field, kind of lights it up a little bit.”
Bears coach John Fox will make the call, and Fox may be motivated by his own job security, and the thought that if the Bears are going to miss the playoffs again, his best bet to save himself is to show that the rookie is making progress on his way to being a franchise quarterback. If it’s close, the nod may go to Trubisky, despite the Bears’ public commitment to Glennon.