126 CHICAGO | SEPTEMBER 2019
that has followed him since the draft
combine. He had told a reporter there
that either is fine (his friends call him
the former; his mother, the latter), and
minor speculation about his preferred
moniker ensued. In an attempt to quell
the discussion, he said that he wanted
to go by Mitchell from there on out.
“But then people went, ‘Oh, I don’t like
Mitchell. It’s too hard to say,’ ” he recalls.
He’s since explained that he doesn’t actu-
ally care. “Some people will still give me
a hard time about it. Like, ‘No, seriously,
what do you prefer?’ And I’m like, ‘No,
seriously, I don’t.’ ”
At this point I realize I have no idea
which name to use. “In the article you
could probably use Mitchell in one sen-
tence and Mitch in another sentence and
nobody would notice,” he says. “It’s just
three letters.”
T’S WORTH REMEMBERING THAT
Trubisky gets only 16 opportunities a
year to prove himself on the field, and
so he has to make the most of them.“People want you to be perfect. They
think it’s a video game,” he says. “I’m
human. I’m going to make mistakes, but
I’m trying to do the best I can.”
He is obsessed with being a profes-
sional. Last summer he struck up a
friendship with the Wall Street Journal’s
“leadership columnist” after he read
his book The Captain Class. Trubisky
is currently reading Legacy, about
New Zealand’s legendary rugby team.
“They’re one of the most winningest
sports teams ever,” he says. “They’re
talking about how they built their cul-
ture, how they won, and how they
developed their leadership. There’s a lot
of good tidbits to take away from that.”
Even the more mundane aspects of
his daily life project this ongoing quest
for self-actualization. For example, his
custom-tailored suits, the collection of
which has become something of a hobby
for Trubisky, are a signal to the world that
he is always thinking about work. “I want
to look like a professional, and what bet-
ter way to do that than by wearing a suit
and tie? To show everybody I’m about my
business?” The suits are a recent affec-
tation — he remembers not being able to
afford nice clothes at the mall when he
was a kid — but he already believes he’s
one of the best-dressed quarterbacks in
the league and knows exactly how many
suits he owns (13).
This single-minded approach extends
to what he doesn’t do, too. You won’t catch
him partying, for example; someone
might snap a photo. “That’s why I don’t
go out. Literally.” Besides, he simply
doesn’t have time for much else outside
of football. “It’s so busy. I realize I can’t
do what everyone else my age is doing,
but flip that around and nobody else my
age is doing what I’m doing.” He dis-
misses the suggestion that his is a lonely
existence. “I have a girlfriend now, so it’s
different. We’d rather hang out with our
families or go out to eat by ourselves
than hit a nightclub.”
He’s a self-proclaimed “foodie,” a
word he uses frequently. Trubisky has
an encyclopedic knowledge of seem-
ingly every restaurant and takeout joint
in the north suburbs and freely rattles
off addresses and menus like stream-
of-consciousness Zagat poetry. At Eddie
Merlot’s, the Lincolnshire steakhouse
where we have dinner, he knows the
waiter by name, and the two pick up on
conversations they had the last time he
was in. Trubisky orders seabass and, for
the table, creamed spinach, cheesy pota-
toes, sweet-and-spicy shrimp, asparagus,
broccoli, and filet mignon pot stickers.
He is clearly not on the TB12 plan, Tom
Brady’s draconian diet. But the MT10
pla n work s fi ne, t h a n k s to h is 25-yea r - old
metabolism. “I like to try to play around
223, 220 pounds. It’s a comfortable play-
ing weight. I’ll try to get up to 225, just so
I have a little comfort area to lose a little
weight during the season.” There’s even
a football logic to ordering extra sides.
Obsessiveness is a defining character
trait for Trubisky well beyond football.
He is a neat freak to the extreme. The
man actually folds his dirty laundry, for
goodness’ sake. When Cody Whitehair
went over to his house for dinner thisoff-season, he noticed Trubisky had
neatly highlighted notepads for all of
last year’s games aligned on his kitchen
counter and organized chronologically.
“I’m kind of OCD,” Trubisky says. His
fingernails are a good example of this. He
keeps each one precisely the same length,
manicuring them himself because he
doesn’t trust anyone else to get it right.
“If one is off, then you start playing with
all of them.” He’d keep his nails in check
no matter his occupation, but there’s also
a functional motivation: The uniformity
aids the mechanics of his release.
He orders dessert — a gourmet riff on an
oversize peanut butter cup — and before it
arrives, I show him the product review
website Wirecutter. He literally starts
bouncing up and down in his chair as he
scrolls through the cleaning products. It’s
the happiest I’ve seen him all day.
“Best vacuum cleaner? That would
be huge.” His jaw drops at the low price
of the recommended device. “One forty
from Amazon? No freaking way! It looks
so basic. I love it.” Now he’s in the com-
ments, reading aloud an interaction
between readers looking for something
to pick up flea eggs. “What?!”
His eyes dart across the phone screen.
“The best handheld vacuum. Wow, that
one is sick. Black+Decker, huh?” He looks
up, beaming. “I’m getting a new vacuum
cleaner. One hundred and ten percent!”
I want to ask more about the com-
ing season, but I cannot bring myself to
distract him from what is obviously a sub-
lime moment of discovery. He’s moved on
to leaf blowers, double-checking to see
if the one he just purchased is recom-
mended. The waiter overhears Trubisky
and asks if he does his own yard work.
“I don’t do my own lawn, but I do my
own cleaning,” he says.
“OK, I was going to say, we don’t want
you spraining nothing doing the lawn.”
Trubisky nods. “It’s cordless, which is
clutch. You know what that’s clutch for?
Cleaning out your garage.”
He asks me if the website has recom-
mendations for laundry detergent and is
delighted to learn that it does. “Dude, this
might change my life.” C