Mitch Trubisky’s ability to command Matt Nagy’s offense will define the Bears’ season

As the Bears prepare to report July 19 for training camp at Olivet Nazarene in Bourbonnais, the Tribune is taking a look at each position group. Today: quarterbacks.

Currently on roster: 3

Projected on final roster: 2 or 3

Roster locks: Mitch Trubisky, Chase Daniel

On the bubble: Tyler Bray

Biggest offseason developments: The Bears hired head coach Matt Nagy, a former Arena League quarterback, to shift Mitch Trubisky’s development into a higher gear. … They signed career backup Chase Daniel (two years, $10 million, $7 million guaranteed) and fifth-year veteran Tyler Bray (one year, $795,000), both of whom have experience playing for Nagy. … Position coach Dave Ragone was the only offensive assistant retained from coach John Fox’s staff. …The Bears released 2017 opening-day starter Mike Glennon, paying him $18.5 million for four starts. …Mark Sanchez, last year’s third quarterback, was not re-signed and currently is without a team.

What to like: From the moment general manager Ryan Pace drafted Trubisky second overall in 2017, the need to surround him with more talented coaches and players became urgent. But that effort didn’t accelerate until after Trubisky’s rookie season, when Pace fired Fox. What followed were a series of hires and signings designed to elevate Trubisky’s performance and, by extension, lift the Bears into playoff contention. Nagy, the Chiefs’ offensive coordinator the last two seasons, brings a precision-based, quick-passing offense that’s colored by option concepts. New coordinator Mark Helfrich, a longtime Division I quarterbacks coach, will help the Bears speed up their tempo. On the field, free agent receivers Allen Robinson and Taylor Gabriel and tight end Trey Burton diversify Trubisky’s targets and provide Nagy flexibility to exploit matchups. Those personnel upgrades, combined with Nagy’s innovative scheme and quarterback-centric approach, should at least equip Trubisky to ascend, even while the team fights through inevitable growing pains with so many new parts.

Biggest question: Can Trubisky command Nagy’s challenging scheme?

Throughout the offseason program, Nagy balanced his excitement about Trubisky’s fit in the offense with clear explanations about how long it will take Trubisky for master it. “They understand that in Kansas City it took us five years to get to that point that we got to,” Nagy said in May. “We’re kind of at a pace right now where we have to, at times, pull back and say to yourself: We’re months into this thing, not years.” Because Nagy’s plays require the quarterback to call for adjustments at the line of scrimmage based on the defense, and for receivers to adjust their routes based on the coverage, Trubisky has a lot to process on every down. Plus, his footwork must be precise in the quick passing game. Keep in mind he started only 12 games last season and only 13 during his entire college career. By all accounts, Trubisky has fully embraced the learning process and even thrived off it during spring practices.

Fresh face: Daniel, 31, is the peer contributor to the quarterback incubator the Bears have built for Trubisky. When Daniel was the Chiefs’ backup from 2013-15, Nagy was the quarterbacks coach under head coach Andy Reid. In 2016, Daniel joined the Eagles under another Reid protégé, Doug Pederson. That was Carson Wentz’s rookie season, so Daniel has experience tutoring a highly drafted quarterback. That’s why the Bears guaranteed him $7 million, not because of his 78 regular-season passes since entering the league in 2009. The offense “is very specific from a quarterback perspective in terms of splits by receivers, what route does a tight end have on this concept, where the running back is, the depth of a running back, how many yards on a ‘ZD bend,’ ” Daniel said. “It’s very quarterback intensive, and as a quarterback we’re supposed to know that stuff. I’m looking forward to teaching Mitchell.”

You should know: Trubisky’s 12 starts as a rookie were full of growing pains. The Bears won only four of those games, and he had 10 turnovers compared with nine touchdowns. But for everything he learned on the field, there was another critical developmental component off it. Said Ragone: “How do you build a weekly schedule? When are you going to get into the building? How long are you going to stay? What’s your schedule? Who are you watching film with? What are you watching? How do you take notes? All that stuff that you maybe don’t do in college because of a lot of different reasons, you have to do now. That’s part of the process. Now, in Year 2, he’s got that built in.”

Quote of note: “We all believe in Coach Nagy’s plan. And you’ve seen the progression from the first day to now. … Each day you might have some bumps in the road, but, looking back on it, we’ve gotten so much better from where we were at Day 1, and that just gives us so much confidence as an offense moving forward.” — Trubisky on June 6

Big number: 77.5 — Trubisky’s passer rating in 12 starts as a rookie. By comparison, Wentz’s rating was 80.1 in his first 12 rookie starts in 2016. The Rams’ Jared Goff, Trubisky’s roommate in Southern California for a few weeks during the offseason, had a 63.6 rating in seven starts as a rookie in 2016.

rcampbell@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @Rich_Campbell

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