Bills' Mitchell Trubisky returns to Chicago and crushes Bears in preseason win

If only Geico or Liberty Mutual could offer an insurance policy as valuable as the one Mitchell Trubisky has presented the Buffalo Bills in 2021.

Saturday afternoon in his return to Soldier Field where he spent the first four years of his NFL career, Chicago Bears fans had to be wondering who this guy was as Trubisky lit up his old teammates for 34 first-half points in the Bills' 41-15 preseason win.

Trubisky completed 20 of 28 passes for 221 yards and a touchdown in a two-quarter epoch that had to leave the Bills and their fan base feeling awfully good about their backup quarterback in the event that Josh Allen were to miss any time in the upcoming season.

Although Trubisky downplayed his return to Chicago last week during the only press conference he has held since signing with the Bills back in March, this game — preseason or not — meant something to him.

"It feels good," Trubisky said. "It felt good to come back and play well and I owe a lot of that to my teammates — run after catch, great plays on defense, great plays on special teams, dominated the field position and turnover battle in the first half, and we did our job on offense and scored points. I just thought we were efficient. I feel comfortable in this offense going down and it felt good to do it against these guys."

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The No. 2 overall pick in the 2017 draft had a rough ride in the Windy City because he never came close to fulfilling his draft status, even though everyone except Bears general manager Ryan Pace felt at the time that Trubisky didn’t warrant being picked so high.

Now resetting his career as Allen’s backup, Trubisky has started Buffalo’s first two preseason games. After playing only two series and attempting two passes in the opener, Trubisky had to be licking his chops when he saw offensive coordinator Brian Daboll’s game plan.

The quarterback was unleashed and the result was touchdowns on the Bills’ first four possessions and six scoring drives in all as Trubisky picked apart the Bears defense with short and intermediate passes.

On the first drive, Trubisky completed five of seven passes for 53 yards, and one of the incompletions was a drop by tight end Dawson Knox. There was one play where a designed screen pass broke down, so Trubisky had to take a sack. Devin Singletary then capped off the 10-play, 72-yard march with a superb 14-yard run around left end for a touchdown.

On the second series, Trubisky went 7-for-10 for 60 yards, much of that to Isaiah McKenzie, before hitting Jake Kumerow with a four-yard TD pass on a quick slant to the post.

Trubisky hit Jacob Hollister for a 19-yard gain to start the third possession, and then Zack Moss took over as he carried four times for 21 yards to set up fullback Reggie Gilliam for a one-yard touchdown run that made it 21-0.

And then on the fourth drive, the Bills were positioned at the Bears 34 thanks to a 35-yard punt return by McKenzie. Trubisky made a great escape from a rush to scramble for 11 yards and completed a 19-yard pass to Matt Breida before Gilliam again finished things off with a 1-yard plunge.

Still, the Bills weren’t done as they closed the half with a pair of Tyler Bass field goals in the final 68 seconds. The first was set up by Trubisky’s perfect 26-yard seam pass to Hollister, and the second coming after Nick McCloud’s interception of Andy Dalton and 20-yard return, followed by Trubisky’s 16-yard pass to Kumerow which cut the field goal attempt down to 41 yards.

Needless to say, it was a superb 30 minutes for Trubisky, but sweet as it was, he doesn’t seem to harbor any hard feelings against the Bears.

"It was cool, it was fun," he said. "It was good to see those guys out there and I'll be rooting for them this season and wish them well and just hope that everyone stays healthy. It kind of felt like practice back in the day just going against those guys, talking a little smack and just having fun playing football.

"But I’m very grateful to be a part of this team and how everybody had my back today and we just went out there and executed and went down the field and made plays and got in the end zone, so that's all you could ask for."