The 2019 Titans advanced to the AFC championship game largely because of a quarterback addition they made in the offseason. The Bears appear to have a similar blueprint in mind.

After three seasons of uneven play from Mitchell Trubisky, the Bears are expected to bring in competition. This year’s Combine has produced a “strong sense” Chicago will add a veteran quarterback to push the former No. 2 overall pick, Jeremy Fowler of ESPN.com tweets.

Bears GM Ryan Pace has said Trubisky will be the starter entering this season, but like Marcus Mariota last year, he could face a veteran to keep the job. The Bears remain uncertain on Trubisky’s fifth-year option as well.

The team has been linked to Andy Dalton, who remains close to new Bears OC Bill Lazor. The latter was Dalton’s coordinator from 2017-18 and his position coach in 2016, and the longtime Cincinnati starter “loved” playing for him. Expected to draft Joe Burrow at No. 1 overall, the Bengals are willing to work with Dalton on a trade.

This year’s free agency class includes some of the biggest names to ever hit the open market. Tom Brady and Philip Rivers are unattached. The Bears have not been connected to either, but Chicago has fielded one of the NFL’s better defenses for years now. That would appeal to a championship-seeking quarterback. Ryan Tannehill and Jameis Winston also are free agents-to-be, though they are franchise tag possibilities in Tennessee and Tampa.

Other potential UFA options include Mariota, Teddy Bridgewater and Case Keenum. Although Matt Rhule said he wanted to retain Cam Newton, a new regime inheriting an injury-prone quarterback in a contract year points to the 2015 MVP being available for the right offer as well. The Bears’ lack of a first-round pick limits their trade options, with their second- and third-rounders then becoming more critical improvement avenues. However, with Khalil Mack set for his age-29 season and Akiem Hicks turning 31 in 2020, this Bears defensive nucleus is running short on time.

The Bears have until May to decide on whether to trigger Mitchell Trubisky‘s option for the 2021 season. They’ll wait until then to make the call, according to GM Ryan Pace (Twitter link via Brad Biggs of the Chicago Tribune).

The fifth-year option is guaranteed for injury only. In 2019, it seemed like Trubisky was dealing with nothing but injuries. Throughout the year, he was plagued with hip, shoulder, and other trouble and he recently went under the knife to fix the torn labrum in his non-throwing shoulder.

The typical recovery time for the labrum surgery is around two months. Trubisky’s surgery took place sometime in January, so the Bears should have some read on his status before the fifth-year option date.

In 2018, Trubisky posted a 95.4 quarterback rating and threw for 24 touchdowns against 12 interceptions en route to a Pro Bowl nod. Last year, however, was a pretty big step back – he had just 17 TDs against ten INTs and the Bears’ talented D couldn’t make up for the offense’s shortcomings. The Bears went 8-7 in Trubisky’s 15 starts and finished .500 on the season, leaving them short of the postseason.

Trubisky has shown promise since being selected No. 2 overall in 2017 and good quarterbacks are hard to find; the expectation remains that they’ll pick up his option. Still, it’s not a sure thing. In the past, the Bears have made these fifth-year option calls well in advance of the deadline, so their delay is telling. The Bears, at minimum, will explore their options during the early stages of free agency and possibly dig into some of this year’s top passers in the April draft.

Bears quarterback Mitchell Trubisky underwent surgery to repair the partially torn labrum in his left, non-throwing shoulder shortly after the end of the season, ESPN.com’s Jeff Dickerson tweets. The typical recovery time for the procedure is around two months, which means that Trubisky should be ready to go well before training camp gets underway. 

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Although it’s not as serious as, say, surgery for his right shoulder, it’s a situation worth monitoring. Trubisky is coming off of a rocky year and even though the Bears intend on moving forward with him as their top QB, the issue could prompt the Bears to spend on a veteran backup.

There’s also the matter of Trubisky’s fifth-year option. The 2017 first-round pick can be cuffed through the 2021 season at a rate of $25MM, guaranteed for injury only. The Bears, at this point, are expected to trigger that option by the May 5th deadline, but a hitch in Trubisky’s recovery could give them pause.

The shoulder wasn’t Trubisky’s only injury in 2019, there was also a hip injury and other maladies along the way. All in all, Trubisky threw for 3,138 yards with 17 touchdowns against ten interceptions – a pretty big step back from his strong 2018 Pro Bowl showing. The Bears went 8-7 in Trubisky’s 15 starts and went 8-8 on the year, falling short of the playoffs.

The Bears announced that starting quarterback Mitchell Trubisky left Sunday night’s loss to the Rams due to a right hip injury. While Trubisky was not pulled until there was 3:24 remaining in the game, the team said the third-year signal-caller actually sustained the injury late in the second quarter.

However, there is plenty of skepticism as to whether an injury really led to Trubisky’s removal. He was in the midst of another disappointing performance in a year full of them, and it could be that head coach Matt Nagy wanted to bench him but did not want to embarrass him, so he either invented or exaggerated the severity of the injury. As Adam Jahns of The Athletic writes, Trubisky spoke after the game like a quarterback who was benched, not hurt. Although Jahns believes the injury was legitimate — Trubisky was walking with a noticeable limp — it also sounds as though it was something he could have played through if he was playing better.

But it’s not as if the Bears have a better option. Trubisky’s backup, Chase Daniel, is a 33-year-old journeyman who has started all of five games in his career. Plus, as Rich Campbell of the Chicago Tribune opines, Chicago needs to see what it has in Trubisky throughout the remainder of the year so that it can fully evaluate its quarterback situation moving forward. As we discussed last week, the 2020 QB market could be more robust than usual should the Bears decide to go shopping, so before they move on from the 2017 No. 2 overall pick, they should make sure he is not the long-term answer.

After all, Trubisky played fairly well in 2018, posting 24 TDs against 12 interceptions to go along with a 95.4 quarterback rating. 2019 has been a disaster, as the offense has frequently stagnated under his watch, but it’s not unreasonable to think he can turn it around if Nagy gives him the opportunity to do so. It seems much will depend on Trubisky’s right hip and Nagy’s faith in Daniel.

The Bears expect to have quarterback Mitchell Trubisky under center when they face the Rams on Sunday, as Patrick Finley of the Chicago Sun-Times writes. Chicago has struggled with Chase Daniel at QB for the last two games and Trubisky’s return is expected to give them a boost. 

Daniel was sharp in a Thanksgiving win over the Lions, but the Bears were upset by the Giants last weekend in a close contest. Daniel is regarded as one of the better backup QBs in the NFL – despite his lack of actual playing time in recent years – but things just didn’t click for Chicago with Daniel at the helm.

“I think it’s a transition for our own players on offense,” head coach Matt Nagy said on Thursday. “All of a sudden you have a new teacher, right? A substitute teacher comes in, and it’s a different voice and you’re trying to figure out, ‘Do I like this teacher or not?’ ”

Trubisky, 24, threw for 20 touchdowns against nine interceptions before a shoulder injury took him out of action. Of course, his six TD/zero INT performance against the Bucs boosted that ratio, but he’s been playing solid football on the whole this year.

The Bears already have a 94% likelihood of making the playoffs, according to Five Thirty Eight, but a win against the star-studded Rams would clinch a postseason berth and move them even closer to the divisional crown. A combination of a Bears win and a Vikings loss would pretty much seal up the NFC North for Chicago, allowing them to rest key players down the stretch.