Pro Football Focus Keeps Trying So Hard to Trash Mitch Trubisky

Pro Football Focus is easily the most divisive product close to the NFL these days. They consider themselves purely analytic-based. A group driven by the need for more accurate data on determining good and bad players in the league. Some of the work they do is good, but a lot of it is under intense criticism. None more so than their grading scale. Mitch Trubisky offers the perfect example.

Need an example. How about this? In 2017, Trubisky had a 71.2 passing grade for his rookie season. He completed 59.4% of his passes for 2,193 yards, 7 touchdowns, and 7 interceptions in 12 games. This past year? The Bears QB got a grade of 57.8. This despite completing 66.6% of his passes for 3,223 yards, 24 touchdowns, and 12 interceptions. Makes perfect sense right?

Right?

They’ve tried to argue that the grades are based on their own data. Anybody with eyes and common sense can clearly tell it’s based more on the opinion of the writers. It’s little wonder most of the NFL has no desire to be associated with it. Sure enough, they doubled down on their Trubisky narrative recently.

Mitch Trubisky is destined for failure according to infallible PFF

Eric Eager and George Chahrouri collaborated on a piece that details their belief that Trubisky is holding the Bears back. Without the benefit of a great defense or Matt Nagy’s play calling, he is a bad quarterback who can’t win. They of course neglect how un-great Drew Brees was before he joined with Sean Payton in New Orleans. The same going for Jared Goff with Sean McVay.

“He ranked 32nd among passers in PFF grade from a clean pocket and 35th in percentage of dropbacks that earned a negative grade. The latter variable is the most stable we have when evaluating quarterbacks and is one from which a player usually does not rebound from one season to the next.

He was 30th among quarterbacks in adjusted completion percentage, an accuracy measure that carries when looking at our ball-charting data, where he rated 30th in percentage of throws labeled “accurate” and 31st in percentage of throws labeled “catchable, but inaccurate” (as in he had relatively few of the former and many of the latter).”

The primary argument is that Trubisky throws too many “bad” passes. Something they apparently think is unfixable through experience and honing of fundamentals. This despite their own grades indicating such improvement. Through his first eight games, he had an average passing grade of 54.07. Over the final seven? It jumped to a 65.27.

So their own numbers counteract this air of pessimism they keep trying to fuel.