Stat of the week: Trubisky has Lions’ Patricia’s number

At the halfway point of the last decade, it was clear the Bears had no answer for the Lions. From 2013 to late 2018, Chicago lost nine of 10 matchups to their eastern Michigan counterparts. A great deal of such calamity and failure coalesced with poor timing around two head coaches, Marc Trestman and John Fox, who quite frankly were never up to the job. But it’s not as if the Bears’ roster in itself, especially at quarterback, didn’t have any issues playing up to snuff against Detroit.

Enter Matt Nagy and his pet project, Mitchell Trubisky.

Since November of 2018, Chicago has won five straight contests over their NFC North rivals. A major factor in this unquestioned recent success has been Trubisky, who started and finished four of those matchups. Not by coincidence, 2018 was also when current Lions head coach Matt Patricia took over proceedings in Allen Park. Every step of the way from that point on, Trubisky has had the former Patriots assistant’s number.

In four career starts against Patricia’s defense, Trubisky has a modest passer rating of 124.39. Such a mark would have comfortably led the NFL in every single season since its inception. He’s completed 69 percent of his passes, and has thrown 12 touchdowns to a mere one interception. Essentially, one of the worst starting quarterbacks in football has had little concerns or issues carving up the defense of one of the worst active head coaches.

The 26-year-old quarterback hasn’t played complete, consistent games in many of these instances. Often, he’s had to clean up his own prevalent early mistakes by the time the clock’s hit all zeroes. But the results against Patricia’s Lions overall, both in the win-loss column and in glowing box scores numbers, have been undeniably favorable for Trubisky and the Bears.