At the point when the Bears traded four draft picks to move up one spot to choose Mitch Trubisky No. 2 in general in 2017, they were certain they had solved their quarterback issues for the next decade or something like that.
Under four years after the trade, Trubisky’s experience with the Bears is finished.
Mitch Trubisky consented to a one-year, $2.5 million deal Thursday with the Buffalo Bills, finishing his tenure with the Bears with two playoff appearances, one Pro Bowl compartment as a physical issue replacement and 29 victories in 50 beginnings.
It’s telling that Trubisky couldn’t find a beginning job this offseason. His new home will not offer that opportunity — quarterback Josh Allen acquired a Pro Bowl nod last season — however it’s a delicate landing spot regardless. He’ll learn under Allen and best in class facilitator Brian Daboll, who is relied upon to be a head-instructing up-and-comer next offseason, and hit the free-specialist market again in a year.
‘‘I don’t know what went on in Chicago, but [Trubisky] started 50 games,’’ Bills general manager Brandon Beane told reporters. ‘‘The label has been put on Mitchell from afar that maybe he doesn’t deserve it. This is a reset for him. We don’t expect him to be here [for the] long term.’’
The Bears consenting to terms Tuesday with quarterback Andy Dalton on a one-year contract informally snuffed out any opportunity Trubisky, 26, would return.
Trubisky showed some willingness to play for the Bears in 2021 following their season finisher misfortune to the Saints, demanding that he had ”unfinished business’’ but that ‘‘a lot of that is out of my control.”
A reunion, be that as it may, wouldn’t have profited either the Bears or Trubisky, who has spent his vocation under the magnifying instrument after GM Ryan Pace exchanged up to draft him as opposed to choosing Patrick Mahomes or Deshaun Watson in 2017. Watson has kept up since the time that the Bears, who went to his ace day at Clemson, never at any point talked with him.
Ostensibly the two most dynamic young quarterbacks in the NFL, Mahomes and Watson marked large cash contract expansions last offseason.
As a new kid on the block, Trubisky won four of 12 beginnings in the wake of supplanting Mike Glennon in Week 5. Speed terminated mentor John Fox toward the finish of that season and employed Matt Nagy, the Chiefs’ hostile organizer who had burned through one season planning Mahomes to begin, to create Trubisky.
In Nagy’s first season, the blending looked encouraging. Trubisky and the Bears went 12-4, won the NFC North and were a twofold doinked field objective by Cody Parkey away from winning their first playoff game.
Yet, Trubisky cratered enough in his third season, showing problematic dynamic and not running as frequently as he had before in his vocation, that the Bears chose not to get his fifth-year choice last May.
His last season with the group was a roller coaster. Trubisky lost his beginning employment in the second from last quarter of the third game the previous fall and returned solely after struggling Nick Foles hurt his hip in a misfortune to the Vikings in Week 10.
The Bears put Trubisky under focus and changed to a rhythm driven, run-based hostile assault — with improved outcomes. Trubisky lost to the Packers and Lions prior to dominating three consecutive games to give the Bears a success and-we’re-in finale against the Packers at Soldier Field.
The Bears lost that game, yet a misfortune by the Cardinals empowered them to sneak into the end of the season games as the NFC’s first No. 7 seed. They lost to the Saints effectively the following week.
While the Bears wouldn’t preclude Trubisky’s return publicly, Pace sounded prepared to proceed onward three days after the finish of the period.
‘‘To get where we want to go, we definitely need more out of that position,’’ he said in January. ‘‘We know that.’’