Mitchell Trubisky and the Bears' new offense clicked from the start and are still very much in the honeymoon phase entering their second week of training camp together.
"What's not to like about this offense? I love it," Trubisky said Friday in Bourbonnais. "There's a lot of options. We throw the ball around a lot and we're going to balance it with a great running game. But the thing I love most is just playing with these guys.
"The five linemen up front are working their tails off and mixing in really. There's a group of seven who's been mixing in. All the guys up front have been busting their ass for me. It's a lot of fun playing with those guys and the new receivers and everybody are just working hard. The scheme is a lot of fun, but playing with the guys is the best part."
Trubisky has also enjoyed working with a revamped receiver position that features newcomers Allen Robinson II, Taylor Gabriel, Bennie Fowler III and rookie Anthony Miller joining returnees Kevin White and Joshua Bellamy.
"They're hungry, they're students of the game, they run really good routes," Trubisky said. "Everybody wants to get better each and every day. Everyone wants to be on the same page. We're moving in the right direction, we're building solid relationships, and we're getting that chemistry and timing down, which is where we need to be. All they guys want to be great at it, so it's great working with them."
Coach Matt Nagy is pleased with the progress that Trubisky is making on a daily basis and was particularly impressed with some of the strides the promising young quarterback took in Friday's practice.
"We're building this puzzle right now and each day we're trying to take one piece of the puzzle and put it up there and then before you know it, at the end of this thing, you have that puzzle put together," Nagy said. "Today was a day where there were two or three pieces that he put together on that puzzle. Specifically, with a protection check, with routes that go with the protection check, he's seeing the field well.
"He had some bad plays, too, and that's what I'm trying to do as a coach is let him know, 'Hey, we're in this together. You understand the bad you did, understand the good you did, and it's our job ultimately in the end at game time to make it all good.'"
Nagy is happy that Trubisky seems to learn from his mistakes and rarely makes the same miscue twice.
"He's doing a great job," Nagy said. "He's so competitive that he wants to be perfect on every single play; it's impossible. You can't be perfect on every single play. That's my job to make sure he understands you can't be perfect every single play and let's be as good as we can and then understand the whys. But I'm so happy with where he's at."
Nagy is impressed with how the second-year quarterback has responded to adversity in practice, maintaining a "next play" mentality after making a mistake.
"He's adjusting to any negative-type plays, so if there's an interception, there's a screw-up in the play call, in the huddle he calls the wrong play, he regroups," Nagy said.
"There's some things he's doing off the field as far as leadership is concerned with the teammates in the meeting room that is just really neat to see. It's just being him and trying to be a leader and not force it. It's him coming out here trying to be a great quarterback, but don't force it and make bad mistakes, and then if you do make mistakes, correct them, don't make them again, and he's doing really well with all that."
