INDIANAPOLIS — The preseason is a trick question for every NFL coach.
Holding players out to avoid injury is prudent — unless it leaves them unprepared for the season. So play them, right? They’re about to play over 1,000 snaps anyway. Another 20 in a preseason game isn’t that much of a risk. But then you’re one awkward hit to the knee away from everyone calling you an idiot for letting someone get hurt in a meaningless game.
That’s the impossible scenario Bears coach Matt Eberflus is navigating with quarterback Justin Fields, and it’s made even more complicated by the fact that Fields is still a developing player who needs all the experience he can get. So by sitting him against the Colts on Saturday, Eberflus is somehow getting it right and wrong at the same time.
The consensus assessment of his decision will come down to the result, like it always does, and that’s why coaches can’t concern themselves with public opinion. Anyone who thinks it’s a good idea now surely will criticize it in hindsight if Fields gets off to a slow start.
Looking at Eberflus’ choice in the context of the moment, he’s getting it more right than wrong this time. Fields has been up and down in training camp and certainly could use the work, but Eberflus made a reasonable argument that he got enough game-like snaps in joint practices with the Colts this week.
That’s a common approach around the NFL, by the way, when teams hold joint practices. The players get two full days of going against another team’s scheme and personnel, and coaches typically prefer that work over preseason games because it can be tailored and there are safeguards to minimize injuries, especially to quarterbacks.
The Bears won’t have that ahead of their preseason finale against the Bills next week, but at this point, it’d make sense to keep Fields out of that one, too. Eberflus said he won’t decide that until a few days before the game. It might hinge on how he looks in practice Monday through Thursday.
This decision would’ve been more clear-cut if Fields had delivered a convincing case for his improvement by now. No one gives the Chargers a sideways glance when Justin Herbert sits out the entire preseason every year because no one worries about him.
But Fields has had some sharp days and clunky ones, just as he did the last two summers, and it’s time to smooth that out into consistency. Eberflus said Thursday he’s “right on pace” to be ready for the season.
In seven plays against the Titans in the first preseason game, Fields completed 3 of 3 passes for 129 yards and two touchdowns. Both touchdown passes, a 62-yarder to DJ Moore and 56-yarder to Khalil Herbert, as well as his 11-yard pass to Khari Blasingame, were completed behind the line of scrimmage. That doesn’t invalidate them, and the Bears have been coaching Fields on taking the easy plays, but he wasn’t tested like he will be during the season.
When the team gets back from Indiana, Fields will have two weeks or less of training-camp-style practices before the Bears shift into game mode to prepare for their season opener against the Packers.
Fields has played 27 games since the Bears drafted him No. 11 overall, and much of that limited experience was undercut by the dysfunction of Matt Nagy’s final season and subpar personnel on the offensive line and at wide receiver.
And while he has been an overwhelming runner, he was the least productive passer in the league last season at 149.5 yards per game. The last Bears starter with so little output was Kyle Orton as a rookie in 2005.
Fields has topped 200 yards just six times, thrown 21 interceptions and been sacked 91 times — second only to the Bengals’ Joe Burrow, who played five more games over those two seasons.
After rushing for 1,143 yards last season, Fields needs to get used to teams going all out to prevent him from scrambling. Defenses will adamantly force him to throw from the pocket until he proves he can do it. That already started last season, but this season it’ll be a heightened emphasis from the start.
The Bears’ plan isn’t to scrub running from Fields’ game. That’s going to be an asset his entire career. Ideally, he could use it when necessary and find a pass-run split along the lines of successful dual-threat quarterbacks like Lamar Jackson, Josh Allen and Jalen Hurts.
That’s all theoretical until Fields proves he can do it regularly, but the Bears probably weren’t expecting that from him in preseason games anyway.
