Dan Wiederer: Mitch Trubisky’s time as a Bears quarterback is nearing the end after only 4 seasons. Where did the time go?

CHICAGO — Three years, 10 months, two weeks and four days. Mitch Trubisky’s career as a Chicago Bears quarterback officially will end Wednesday afternoon. The unceremonious conclusion will occur at 3 p.m., when Trubisky’s rookie contract expires.

That’ll be it, a rather ho-hum ending and a page-turning moment for Trubisky and the Bears. But there will also be an audible thump, the sound of the back cover closing far too early on their story together.

The tale folded within those three years, 10 months, two weeks and four days always will be layered, with unanswered questions and sharp disappointment and lament for what might have been but never was.

Including the postseason, Trubisky made 52 starts, 29 of those wins.

He threw 64 regular-season touchdown passes and totaled 10,609 passing yards.

He won a division championship, made two playoff appearances and experienced one trip to the Pro Bowl.

Still, so many other major boxes on the checklist remain unmarked.

In totality, Trubisky’s run here forever will register as disappointing. So many prolonged stretches of inconsistency. Too few signature moments.

And now it’s time for a fresh start. For everybody involved.

The Bears will continue their latest quest to find a star quarterback, persisting on that mission behind general manager Ryan Pace, who swung and missed on Trubisky, and coach Matt Nagy, who failed to develop him into an every-week difference maker.

Trubisky, meanwhile, will step into free agency, seeking a new opportunity, a change in scenery and an opening to compete.

The city of Chicago? Well, its teeth will remain gritted, its fingers digging deep into its scalp.

What the hell happened? Are the Bears really starting all over? Already? Again?

———

On a Saturday morning in June 2019, Trubisky stood backstage at the Bears 100 celebration, glowing like a Vegas marquee. A little while earlier he had shared center stage at the Rosemont Convention Center with Jim McMahon, the only quarterback to ever lead the Bears to a Super Bowl victory.

Trubisky accepted a pair of sunglasses and a headband from McMahon that morning and soaked in whatever heartfelt guidance the Punky QB offered.

McMahon always appreciated the hard-working nature of Chicago and knew that Chicago admired players who played hard.

“If you play hard for Chicago, they’ll love you,” he told Trubisky. “And if you play hard and win, they’ll love you forever.”

Trubisky nodded and smiled.

Five months earlier, Trubisky helped propel the Bears into the postseason, did his best to lead a game-winning drive in the final minute of his playoff debut and followed with a trip to the Pro Bowl as an alternate. So much of it seemed like a beginning.

Suddenly, much of Chicago was envisioning a charge at the Super Bowl in the franchise’s 100th season. A window for the Bears to be legitimate championship contenders for a half-decade or longer seemed open.

Trubisky was energized by all of it.

A night earlier, he had taken inventory on his surroundings and felt thrilled to be in the company of so many Bears greats and so many members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He saw Gale Sayers and Mike Ditka and Dick Butkus and couldn’t help but make a mental note of how special the scene was.

Richard Dent pulled him aside for a conversation, offered guidance on how to excel as a quarterback in the NFL and Trubisky pulled out his smartphone to quickly tap in some notes.

Just about everywhere Trubisky and his teammates turned, energized Bears alumni were expressing their optimism for where the team’s journey seemed headed. “It’s cool,” Trubisky said during a private moment that weekend, “to have guys of that caliber proud of you and rooting for you.”

At the time, Trubisky was 24, a young and eager quarterback feeding off that widespread belief. He wanted a return to glory for the Bears franchise as bad as anyone and promised to fuel his efforts with confidence, toughness and a thick skin. He vowed to remain devoted to strengthening relationships with teammates and coaches.

“It’s obviously a huge honor to be the quarterback of the Chicago Bears,” he said.

Trubisky acknowledged that honor while recognizing the pressure. He was mature enough to realize the hope he generated as well as the sharp criticism shot at him were byproducts of the Bears’ tortured quarterback history.

Everything about being the quarterback of the Chicago Bears was intensified by the deep scars and chronic disappointment that predated his arrival. Heck, it predated his birth and, quite frankly, the birth of his parents.

To be clear, that dynamic wasn’t one Trubisky ever scurried away from like it was a zero-blitz on third-and-long. He wanted the high stakes. He understood the burden of expectations.

“Why would I shy away from that?” Trubisky said. “I wouldn’t change any of that. Because I have an intense love and passion for this game. And that’s exactly what the fans in Chicago have for football and the Bears. It just heightens everything. That’s exactly what you want as a player. We want our fans to be as intense as we are and to care that much.”

———

Somehow, less than two years later, Trubisky’s bags are packed, and his NFL journey is about to take him elsewhere.

He never became what the Bears believed he would, with near-unanimous agreement around the NFL that, at this stage, he has fallen light years behind Class of 2017 draftmates Patrick Mahomes and Deshaun Watson.

Pace could have picked either of those future stars in spring 2017 but was drawn most to Trubisky, so convinced he was a star-in-the-making that he traded up from No. 3 to No. 2 to pick the North Carolina quarterback. That move offered an unspoken declaration that the Bears were unwilling to settle for either Mahomes or Watson, that it was Trubisky and Trubisky only at the top of their draft board.

As deeply as that misstep has been chronicled and with as much fatigue and aggravation as it has brought to Bears fans, it will always be the biggest thread woven through Trubisky’s Chicago narrative.

But it also should be recognized that through everything Trubisky experienced and endured, he handled himself with class and professionalism and a dedication to the grind.

He was driven. Team-oriented. Almost always low-maintenance.

He was respected and well-liked by teammates and admired by many of the coaches who worked most closely with him.

Unlike his predecessor, Jay Cutler, whose deportment was frequently caricatured with a “Don’t caaaare!” portrayal, Trubisky did care. Deeply. About his career development. About his teammates. About the city of Chicago and its grand aspirations for the Bears.

Perhaps, at times, he cared too much. His thirst to succeed sometimes exposed his tendency to be too hard on himself, to get caught in the vicious cycle of struggling and then pressing and then failing and then pressing even more.

At times, that strain became severe.

———

Remember the first time Trubisky played a game at Soldier Field? Remember those 10 consecutive completions on a pleasant August night during a preseason game against the Denver Broncos? Each dart elevated the electricity and imagination of the night.

Man, the potential was obvious.

“This is such a big platform,” Pace said that month. “Playing football in the National Football League. In Chicago. As the top quarterback taken in the draft. But none of that is too big for Mitch. His personality is so even-keel. He just needs to go through the process. And whenever it is that he gets his opportunity to play, he’ll be ready.”

Remember the five first half touchdown passes Trubisky threw against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers a little more than 13 months later? Six TD tosses by afternoon’s end. In the moment, that felt like a significant breakthrough, the arrival. This was a young quarterback displaying confidence and command, lifting the Bears at the start of a run that would end with an NFC North championship.

“Just a special day,” Trubisky said. “I was just feeling it.”

Added Nagy that afternoon: “Hopefully this is a day we look back on and say, ‘Remember that day when he had that great game and it helped catapult him?’ ”

Remember Trubisky’s 25-yard dime up the right sideline to Allen Robinson in the final minute of a playoff game, on what very well could have become a landmark moment had it not been for the rigidity of the Soldier Field goalposts? Even after that loss to the Philadelphia Eagles, that final drive and that one clutch pass was supposed to be meaningful.

“We see his ceiling is really high,” offensive lineman Cody Whitehair said.

Alas, those moments — the electricity, the excellence, the promise — were too few and far between.

For every Trubisky high, there were distinct dips, the turbulence severe enough to make an entire city’s stomach drop. Repeatedly.

Remember the deflation of that 3-point dud against the Packers in the 2019 season opener?

Or the dismal stretch Trubisky had that October in losses to the New Orleans Saints, San Diego Chargers and Eagles, those pronounced struggles that eroded the coaching staff’s faith in him?

Or his abrupt benching in Atlanta in Week 3 of last season?

In only 21 of his 52 starts did Trubisky propel the Bears offense to three touchdowns or more. Of the eight occurrences when Trubisky helped the offense reach 30 points, five came against teams that finished the season with at least 10 losses.

In 19 starts made against teams that made the playoffs, the Bears went 5-14.

Trubisky’s unraveling didn’t come because he didn’t work hard enough or because he was too egocentric or wasn’t smart enough. At the NFL level, playing quarterback at a high level on a consistent basis is just really damn hard. And Trubisky is the latest Bears quarterback to provide evidence to that argument.

His ability to process opposing defenses just wasn’t consistent enough. His instincts just weren’t sharp enough. His playmaking prowess just wasn’t anywhere near exceptional enough.

———

Those in Trubisky’s corner present reasonable arguments about the Bears’ failure to set him up properly for success. When he was drafted in 2017, for example, it was with a vision from the top that he would ultimately be groomed and developed by a coaching staff to be named later.

Furthermore, Pace’s original hope to have Trubisky sit and learn during his rookie season was scrapped after four woeful Mike Glennon starts, thrusting Trubisky into early action with a ragtag receiving corps.

Trubisky had to transition from John Fox’s staff and system to Nagy’s in 2018. Yet even with the exhilarating success the Bears experienced that year, eventually the connection between Trubisky and Nagy withered, and the offense lost its way.

Ironically, after Nick Foles floundered through a seven-start experiment as Trubisky’s replacement last fall, Trubisky returned to the starting role and aided a three-game December winning streak that helped the Bears reach the playoffs and ultimately helped Pace and Nagy keep their jobs.

With another crack at fixing things, the biggest priority for Pace and Nagy becomes finding a new quarterback. A replacement for Trubisky.

“To get to where we want to go, we definitely need more out of that position,” Pace said in January. “We know that.”

Trubisky leaves Chicago with his most devoted believers still convinced he can be a top-tier starter and that his struggles were due, in large part, to a rigid offensive system and a stubborn coach who didn’t mold things around the quarterback’s strengths enough.

Critics, meanwhile, will counter that across four seasons and 52 starts, a large sample size of Trubisky’s play showed he just wasn’t capable of producing wow plays and statement wins on a regular basis.

He was rarely the biggest catalyst of Bears victories.

In the 29 Trubisky starts the Bears won, how many included signature high-level performances by the quarterback? Six or Seven? Nine, tops?

Trubisky himself frequently acknowledged his performance just wasn’t good enough. No matter the reasons. He rarely if ever lashed out at those who skewered him most harshly. He recognized and accepted all that came with being the quarterback of the Bears. The scrutiny. The expectations. The pressure. The golden opportunity.

He gave everything he had to make the most of it. In the end, it just wasn’t enough.

For whatever it’s worth, Trubisky’s final pass as a Bear was a touchdown toss to Jimmy Graham on the final drive of a playoff game. It meant nothing, just a garbage-time score as time expired that trimmed the Saints’ margin of victory from 18 to 12.

After that game, Trubisky said publicly he could see himself returning to the Bears in 2021 while also knowing that scenario wasn’t likely the ideal one — for him or the Bears.

“I know God has a plan for me,” Trubisky said. “I’ll just continue to stay positive and keep working and keep believing.”

His tone was sullen, in stark contrast to the energy he exuded at the Bears 100 celebration in summer 2019.

On that spirited weekend, three months before the Bears opened their 100th season with a prime-time rivalry showdown against the Green Bay Packers, Trubisky was confident he would be able to help make everyone’s dreams come true, labeling both his excitement and the team’s expectations as “incredibly high.”

“You allow yourself to look into the future a little bit and imagine what it could be,” he said. “But for me, that’s something that also allows me to pull back and really focus and remind everyone that we have a lot of work to do and a lot of improvements to make. … It’s not just going to happen on its own. And it’s not just going to happen because the expectations are high and people believe in us.”

Sometimes? It just doesn’t happen at all.

Without warning, the end closed in faster than most ever would have imagined. After three years, 10 months, two weeks and four days, Trubisky’s time as the Chicago Bears quarterback has come to an end.