If Mitch Trubisky wants to feel good about himself again, perhaps he should take a walk through the Giants locker room.
The Bears quarterback has been a shell of the player he was last year, but his next opponent is largely refusing to buy into that notion. The Giants, with a 2-8 record and one of the league’s worst passing defenses, do not have that luxury.
Trubisky may look at the schedule and see the Giants coming to town on Sunday as the cure to his hip injury and disappointing season. The Giants look at Trubisky and say they see a guy who is just as capable of doing damage (the good kind) as he was last year.
“He’s a good quarterback,” safety Jabrill Peppers said Thursday. “He’s had his rough moments, but a lot of quarterbacks have. But he’s still a guy you gotta prepare for. Still a guy that has great arm talent. His mobility, he can move the pocket. They got a lot of playmakers that can make plays for him.”
Trubisky re-entered the national spotlight Sunday for the wrong reasons. With the Bears trailing the Rams late in the fourth quarter on “Sunday Night Football,” backup quarterback Chase Daniel replaced Trubisky. Only later did the Bears say it was because of a hip pointer, which Trubisky said he sustained in the second quarter and tried to play through. His mediocre play — 24-for-43, 190 yards, one touchdown, one interception — may have warranted a benching anyway.
But the Giants were ready to provide excuses for him.
“Windy up there, so I don’t know if that plays a part,” safety Michael Thomas said, before realizing Sunday’s game was in Los Angeles, not Chicago. “OK, well then — trying to help him out — I don’t know what was going on. I think he got injured a little bit towards the end, or something like that, or whatever the situation is. So it’s just understanding that he has a great crew around him, great playmakers. For us, we have to go out there and do our job.”
After his latest clunker, Trubisky is completing 62.4 percent of his passes for 1,580 yards, nine touchdowns and four interceptions. His 5.6 yards per attempt and 9 yards per completion are both dead last in the NFL. The third-year pro is also not running the ball nearly as much or as effectively as he did last season.
But Trubisky was a full practice participant Wednesday and Thursday, and head coach Matt Nagy told reporters Trubisky will remain the starter if he is healthy.
The idea of facing a young Giants defense may help Trubisky heal quicker. They have specialized in broken coverages, without bringing much pressure up-front, and have allowed 27-plus points in all but one game this season.
The Giants have been kind to quarterbacks needing a bounce-back game, whether it was Sam Darnold, Jameis Winston or Kirk Cousins. They would like not to offer the same opportunity to Trubisky.
“We need to take advantage of him whether he’s up or down,” defensive lineman B.J. Hill said.
Trubisky missed his shot against the Giants last year, sitting out with a shoulder injury. Daniel played instead, and the Giants pulled off the upset in overtime, despite Tarik Cohen making 12 catches for 156 yards.
But if Trubisky returns from his injury in time to face the Giants this time, as he is expected to do, the Giants are hoping to keep him down while he is down.
“For us, it’s like, we know what type of player he is, what he’s capable of doing, regardless of whether he’s dealing with something this year,” Thomas said. “We gotta prepare for, ‘Hey, what if he brings his A game against us?’ We know what types of players he has around him. You give them the ball in space and they’re great playmakers, so we gotta make sure we execute our defense.”