Much of the talk going into this Sunday regarding that Patriots has centered around the team's offensive struggles and how they'll perform against an aggressive Steelers defense that pestered Joe Burrow and the Bengals offense for five quarters in Week 1.
But perhaps we should be talking just as much about the quarterback on the other side of the ledger. That would be Mitchell Trubisky, who "won" the Steelers' post-Ben Roethlisberger quarterback competition (until Kenny Pickett is ready to play, that is).
The fact that the Steelers are starting Trubisky in Week 2 might be the single biggest thing New England has going for it Sunday.
As rough as things looked for Burrow in the season-opener, Trubisky wasn't exactly better, passing for just 194 yards and a touchdown and completing just 55 percent of his passes. The best part of his performance was the fact that he didn't turn the ball over and had two clutch completions to set the Steelers up for a game-winning field goal.
Other than that, Trubisky looks little changed from the last time the Patriots played him in 2018 when he was a member of the Chicago Bears. In that game, he put up 333 yards passing but needed 50 attempts to do it -- he completed just 26 of them -- and put up a big chunk of the yards with New England up two scores at the end of the game. He was also picked twice -- once each by J.C. Jackson and Jonathan Jones, though he did out-scramble the Patriots' defense for a red-zone score.
Trubisky's tape features spottier accuracy than you'd expect from a quarterback whose supposedly elite quality coming out of college was, well, accuracy. He still doesn't function well as a pocket passer, frequently resorting to escaping the pocket at the slightest hint of trouble, and struggles to stretch the field consistently.
While one might be tempted to compare him to the quarterback the Patriots just played last week -- Tua Tagovailoa -- such a comparison is probably unfair to Tua.
Going back to 2017, when Trubisky was drafted second overall by the Bears, Tagovailoa at least ranks among the bottom tier of starting quarterbacks in the NFL (minimum 300 plays) along with likes of Carson Wentz, Baker Mayfield and Jalen Hurts in terms of combined EPA/play and completion percentage above expected (CPOE). It's not great, but you can win with that.
Trubisky, on the other hand, sits firmly among players like Nick Foles, Josh McCown and…Cam Newton (the hurt, bad version).
In short, if you don't fear Tua, you definitely don't need to fear Trubisky. In fact, the Patriots defense should feel like that matchup favors them quite a bit more than the other way around with Mac Jones and the Steelers defense.
When the schedule came out, I picked the Patriots to win this game without a second thought because of who was likely to play quarterback for the Steelers. Now that Trubisky is certainly the man behind center to start this game, that opinion isn't changing -- even as rough as things looked for New England when they had the ball last week.
Trubisky is a known quantity in the NFL, and that quantity isn't much to worry about. If the Patriots can somehow muster up just two touchdowns and add a field goal or two, New England should get their first win of the season.
Pittsburgh's strong group of skill position players -- from Najee Harris to Dionte Johnson to Pat Freiermuth -- can only do so much with Trubisky at quarterback. The Patriots need to exploit that fact on Sunday.
