The preseason is to Mitchell Trubisky as water is to a young plant.
In 2019, Chicago Bears head coach Matt Nagy made the bold choice to not play Mitchell Trubisky in the preseason at all. While that may have been a good idea on the surface, it certainly didn’t work out for them. Trubisky went from an 11-3 record as a starter to 8-7, and the Bears offense looked absolutely stuck in the mud against Green Bay in Week 1 on prime-time TV.
With Trubisky now a backup on the Buffalo Bills, the situation is not that much different in terms of necessity. Playing your backup considerably is a good practice to follow, seeing how they hopefully won’t play meaningful snaps in the regular season. While Trubisky’s passing yards didn’t really suffer, the wins and touchdowns dropped sharply. From 11-3 to 8-7, and from 24 TDs to 17.
On top of that, the preseason is now only three games instead of four. Josh Allen may see just a drive or two for all of these games, and there’s no real way to guess, as it’s the first season after having 4 games as the standard amount.
Playing Mitchell Trubisky a lot will only maximize skills growth and benefits
The coaching staff of the Buffalo Bills is a lot more organized than that of the Chicago Bears. Offensive coordinator Brian Daboll helped take Allen from a raw rookie into the star of this franchise. I’m not saying that Trubisky will have that kind of jump, but his experience should be better in Buffalo.
Plus, if Trubisky does well in the preseason, he can become a possible trade asset in case a team needs an emergency starter. It would be similar to how Sam Bradford was traded from the Philadelphia Eagles to the Minnesota Vikings. The Eagles got a first round pick and another pick as well from the QB-hungry Vikings.
While Trubisky is the better player than Bradford, the value he may demand from teams would be interesting to see. That trade would only happen if the Bills felt confident in Jake Fromm as the backup instead of Trubisky.