Now that training camp is here with the Pittsburgh Steelers back in Latrobe and gearing up for what they hope will be a much more productive season, it’s time to take stock of where the team stands. Specifically, where Steelers players stand individually based on what we have seen and are seeing over the course of training camp and the preseason and the regular season as it plays out. A stock evaluation can take a couple of different approaches and I’ll try to make clear my reasoning for each one. In some cases, it will be based on more long-term trends. In other instances, it will be a direct response to something that just happened. Because of this, we can and will see a player more than once over the course of the season as we move forward.
Player: QB Mitch Trubisky
Stock Value: Down
Reasoning: Six practices into training camp, veteran quarterback Mitch Trubisky has taken only first-team reps, but hasn’t looked like a first-team quarterback that any Super Bowl-caliber team should have.
Sometimes I feel obliged to preface these things with the caveat that these stock evaluations aren’t always supposed to mean a great deal, that a ‘stock down’ doesn’t mean somebody is horrible and is going to remain horrible forever.
I include that preface now while discussing the first five practices for Mitch Trubisky in training camp for the Steelers, during which he frankly has not looked very good, from all reports. In fact, he frequently goes 0-for during his situational reps, all with the first-team offense, and it’s becoming hard to ignore.
He does get a caveat here, though. He may be practicing with the first-team offensive line, but he isn’t practicing with the first-team skill positions. Diontae Johnson hasn’t taken a single teams rep. Chase Claypool and Pat Freiermuth have both missed most of training camp due to minor injuries, and now Najee Harris is nursing a foot injury.
That’s a lot of firepower that isn’t out there. Nevertheless, that doesn’t wholly excuse his underwhelming performance, even if the Steelers’ excellent defensive standouts have a lot to do with the first-string offense’s limitations. It’s hard to play against T.J. Watt even in a practice setting.
But for how long can we ignore the very underwhelming play that the Steelers are getting from the favorite for the starting quarterback job? At some point, the others are going to take some first-team reps, by design, and frankly, I can’t wait, so we can do better apples-to-apples comparisons.
Practice is practice, indeed, and games are games. Trubisky only has five practices under his belt, which is still not a large sample size. That’s true enough. But it’s also true that it’s what we have to go on thus far, and based on what we have seen up to this point, Trubisky hasn’t done himself any favors. And that’s the point.
