That was the takeaway from their press availability Tuesday at Halas Hall, where the owner stood firmly behind the general manager, who had just endorsed the coach and the handpicked quarterback as enthusiastically and unconditionally as possible. We're left to believe that crumbling into one of the worst offenses in the NFL is just chalked up to some combination of bad luck, injuries and the whim of non-linear development. We were told that the Bears will now reflect and evaluate, but they never admitted that a single mistake was made that could possibly have put them in this position.
But entering his fourth season, Trubisky has to get better at some things. One aspect is being able to recognize what defense is being used against him, according to coach Matt Nagy.
"We talked about decision-making, but I want him to be a master at understanding coverages," Nagy said. "These defensive coordinators, they have different ways of showing different coverages, and they're good at it."
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Trubisky has made 41 NFL starts, which includes 29 for Nagy. And he still can't read a defense. What's more is all that we were told heading into 2019 amid the training camp excitement was how much progress he had already made in understanding the intricacies of the system, moving up to the 200 level of his education. And after all of this, now the Bears have to teach Trubisky how to figure out what the other team is doing.
But it's OK, because Pace sees them on the right path.
"The team is growing collectively as a unit," Pace said. "We're a relatively young team. There's been change recently with Matt last year, Chuck (Pagano) this year. I think we have a lot of high character and strong culture in our building. They all understand it's a growth process. We're growing in a lot of areas throughout our whole roster."
This is an executive who tied himself to his quarterback after needlessly surrendering valuable draft capital to trade up for the chance to select him instead of two others who became much better much sooner. Pace may have nothing to lose at this point, and that's why he can bolster Nagy by saying ,"I have extreme confidence in him as our head coach, extreme confidence in him as our play-caller and extreme confidence in him righting the ship."
There's really no unwinding of the Trubisky pick at this point, though it was notable that there was no commitment yet to picking up his fifth-year option, nor was there a ruling out of a more viable potential starter as a backup. But he's still the Bears' guy because he has to be.
Pace mentioned that "we knew his experience coming out of college," an acknowledgment of how raw a prospect Trubisky was at the time, cited then by some as an indicator of higher risk if not a pronounced negative. Pace is now himself reduced to using that as an excuse years after the fact.
He may have no choice but to ride this wherever it's going, with so much of his own course set with one shocking decision three years ago this spring. He made this world for himself and figures to see it however he wants.