Mitch Trubisky waited no time in his first ever media availability as a Tennessee Titans quarterback spelling out why offensive coordinator Brian Daboll is the perfect fit for second year quarterback Cam Ward.

Trubisky, the second overall pick of the 2017 NFL Draft, has seen his career wind up and down from a hopeful-franchise QB to now a journeyman veteran asset. He spent the 2021 season with the Buffalo Bills, which was his first season away from the Chicago Bears, who drafted him. Daboll was in his final year as the Bills offensive coordinator before earning the head coaching job with the New York Giants.

“Super pumped,” Trubisky said of reuniting with Daboll and Titans QB coach Shea Tierney. “I had so much fun with them back in Buffalo a few years ago, when I had the opportunity to come back with him. Pretty much a no-brainer.”

Daboll’s reputation is different than most other offensive minds in the NFL. He’s not known for one particular scheme, the “Shanahan style”, or the latest trend. He’s known for making the offense work for whoever he has playing the quarterback position. Trubisky confirmed that right away.

“Player-friendly,” Trubisky described Daboll’s scheme. “There’s completions out there to be had. He’s going to call the game the way you like it. He’s going to call the concepts the way you like it. It’s just evolved over the years, and it’s been proven everywhere he’s been that they put up points, and it’s very friendly for the quarterback. So, you just got to dive in, know the execution, go out there, find completions, and it’s a really fun system to play in.”

Brian Daboll sees the game through the eyes of his QB

ESPN’s Turron Davenport set Trubisky up with a great question diving further into Daboll’s philosophy of leaning into his quarterback and not forcing the quarterback into his ways. It sounds great, but how is it executed?

“Communication with him on a daily basis and weekly basis, the concepts that you like, the plays that you’re comfortable with, whether you like no huddle, the tempos, getting on the ball, or huddling up the play actions, all those concepts, and everything that you’re comfortable with.”

“(Daboll) is going to call those more for you, and he’s going to mold the offense around what you like as a quarterback. He calls it differently for each quarterback that’s out there. He calls it to our strengths and what we like. We’re still in the early phases of this thing, but as we go through the rest of OTAs and mini camp, we’ll continue to evolve and see what we like as the offense, what fits us.”

As Trubisky says, it’s still early in the process with the Titans holding mandatory minicamp this upcoming week before the summer break ahead of late July’s training camp.

The biggest question for the team this year is ‘what type of offense is best for Cam Ward, and can Daboll elevate the 2025 first overall pick?’

Last summer then Titans head coach Brian Callahan said they were installing some of what Ward was successful with in college, but then the RPO (run-pass option) game was lessened somewhere along the way. The assumed fear for RPO heavy emphasis was the potential for Ward to have too many batted balls at the line of scrimmage.

We know Ward has high level improvisational skills, but that’s not a sustainable way to win in the NFL. Can Daboll and Ward settle into the right blend of structure and freedom?

Mitch Trubisky is perfect for what the Titans need right now

Easton Freeze: I think that no matter how you slice it, Trubisky is a hand-in-glove fit for the Titans in 2026.

Let’s start with the quality of the backup quarterback. Because if you’ve followed my work for any amount of time, then you know this is important to me. I am an advocate for the stance that backup quarterback is highly undervalued by good teams, and often overvalued by bad ones. This is why last season, I was entirely fine with Tennessee rocking with Brandon Allen as their backup. I wasn’t arguing that he was good; I was arguing the the Titans were a bad team and should not be valuing the position.

The 2026 Titans are kind of in good team/bad team purgatory. I’m not sure anybody will be surprised if they end up on either side of that ledger. But as they aim to get a seat back at the big boy table beginning this fall, upgrading the backup quarterback situation was necessary in my opinion. Going from Brandon Allen to Mitch Trubisky is certainly that.

Two years ago, the Titans had Mason Rudolph as the back up to Will Levis. Rudolph was a higher caliber than Allen was, and he ended up playing a decent amount of that season Thanks to Levis’ injuries and poor performance. I personally think Trubisky is a better backup option than Rudolph is today, but there’s no arguing the fact that Trubisky brings something to the table that Rudolph didn’t: scheme experience.

That was part of what convinced Trubisky to decide Tennessee was a “no-brainer“ in free agency. He worked with Brian Daboll in Buffalo when Daboll’s offense was successful enough to propel him into the head coaching ranks. He came into spring practice this year and immediately looked like a guy who was mentally ahead of the other quarterbacks. That’s to be expected, because he is the control in these practices. He’s a capable backup quarterback who already knows what’s going on mentally.

That is valuable in the meeting room as Cam Ward tries to get his bearings in the new offense. But I think it’s also valuable on the practice field for those of us in the media, and more importantly those on the coaching staff to gauge on a daily basis how well Ward is picking things up.

The last way in which Trubisky feels perfect is his mindset and career experience. One of the first things he told media at the podium last Thursday was that he’s at a stage in his career where he’s happy to be the mentor for somebody like Cam Ward. He is being paid to be a strong backup quarterback, and he is accepting of that role.

But he can also relate to Cam Ward because he was a highly drafted rookie that faced a lot of scrutiny as the starter once too. The ups and downs of his time in Chicago give him perspective on what Cam Ward is going through today. Having that perspective in Cam’s ear can only be a good thing.