Report: Steelers Sign Free Agent Quarterback Mitchell Trubisky

The Pittsburgh Steelers have reached an agreement to sign free agent quarterback Mitchell Trubisky to a two-year contract, according to a report by NFL Network.

Trubisky, the former Chicago Bears first-round pick, spent the 2021 season as a backup behind Josh Allen in Buffalo. He was also expected to draw interest from the New York Giants and New Orleans Saints.

Trubisky was taken by the Bears with the No. 2 overall pick in the 2017 NFL Draft out of North Carolina, who traded up to get him, but things did not go well in his tenure in Chicago.

After Trubisky supplanted starter Mike Glennon in his rookie season, the Bears fired head coach John Fox and replaced him with Matt Nagy, and the marriage between quarterback and coach never seemed to be a happy one, despite a Pro Bowl season by Trubisky in 2018.

In 2020, the Bears traded for Nick Foles, declared Trubisky’s job open for competition and decline his fifth-year option. Trubisky won the job but was later benched and left Chicago after the season. Nagy was fired one year later.

Trubisky spent the 2021 season as the backup in Buffalo. An athletic quarterback, Trubisky said he learned from Allen’s balance between being a pocket passer and an athlete on the edge, and learned from the same coaching staff that developed Allen into a star.

The Steelers will add Trubisky to Mason Rudolph and Dwayne Haskins to their quarterback room, creating a battle between three players with NFL starting experience to replace Ben Roethlisberger this fall.

With the NFL salary cap depressed in the 2021 offseason, Trubisky played under a low-stakes one-year contract in Buffalo that paid him $2.5 million. Terms of his agreement with Pittsburgh have not been released.

Signing Trubisky does not preclude the Steelers from drafting a quarterback, but it does make it much more likely that the team will use the No. 20 overall pick on another position of need.