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Posted at 11:00 AM EST.

1:00 PM EST. We've heard all about fading rookie quarterbacks on the road, but you can walk into any casino in Vegas and bet whatever you want on those games. So if the books aren't afraid of that angle, neither are we. These first-year starters don't come into the league like they did 10, 20, or 30 years ago. Major college football programs are becoming more and more like pro football franchises every year. It wasn't that long ago that you could barely find even the most prominent teams on television every week, but that is no longer the case. Every level of the college game is big money. Each conference has their own network or TV deal. FBS is big business and it's covered as such. The NFL's 24-hour news cycle also leaves no stone unturned when it comes to ranking, profiling, and exposing every aspect of the transition from college to the pros. A guy like Sam Darnold was dissected from every angle in a way that say, Troy Aikman was not. The old rule of thumb used to be that it took three or four years for a quarterback to develop, but that is no longer the case. Rookies are generally expected to come in, start and be successful right away. Even when a team has a plan to keep their potential franchise player protected early on like Arizona or Buffalo this year, it doesn't take long for the switch to be made if the wins aren't there. If Aikman struggled in today's game as he did back in 1989, he might be deemed a bust after going 0-11 to start his career. The Jets made the call early to make Darnold their man and he has not looked out of place. Darnold is already miles ahead of where his counterpart was at this same time last season.

Mitch Trubisky is the hot new fantasy quarterback on the block, but do not let those meaningless points he's putting up sugarcoat the fact that he is a terrible decision maker on the field. We've stated in this space before that Matt Nagy is an offensive genius and the fact that Trubisky can even be considered a fantasy starter says a lot about the turnaround on that side of the ball in Chicago. If you just look at the box score against New England, the second year pivot and his team's performance seems pretty admirable, but it could have been so much better. We're not talking about the Hail Mary the Bears threw as time expired that came up just short of the goal line either because that game should have never got to that point. Multiple errors from the Chicago side sunk its chance to win that game outright, which it had every opportunity to do, but giving up big plays and turning the ball over at crucial times did the Bears in, not to mention a kickoff return for a TD.

From our perspective, one of the big takeaways from the second half of that Patriots game was that the Bears are one of those teams that cannot get out of their own way when it comes to making mistakes. It would be one thing if New England ripped those passes away from Chicago receivers, but they didn't, as freaking Trubisky forced a pair of bad passes. One was into double coverage and the other underthrown. Trubisky is ranked 19th in quarterback DVOA and 19th in DYAR. DYAR (Defense-adjusted Yards Above Replacement is an advanced statistic that gives value to a QB's performance compared to a run of the mill replacement level pivot). Trubisky is below average and therefore is in no way ready to be spotting this type of weight to competitive teams like the Jets. Chicago was a +3½-point pooch last Sunday (until it was announced that Gronk was out and it dropped to +1½) but that was a role that suits them so much better. This 11½- point swing is a result of a very good offensive showing last week against you know who, but quite frankly, it’s ridiculous and we have to try to take advantage.

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