It’s early, so the Bears might wait until an extended break in their schedule to shake things up like they did last season, but the ugly performance in their season-opening loss to the Packers should’ve set off some alarms in the building.
The most striking difference between the teams was that while Packers quarterback Jordan Love looked comfortable and capable in their offense, Bears quarterback Justin Fields looked as rushed and uncertain as he did last season.
Fields completed 24 of 37 passes for 216 yards with a touchdown and an interception for a 78.2 passer rating and ran nine times for 59 yards with a lost fumble. His passing yardage was inflated by 72 empty yards after falling behind 38-14 in the fourth quarter.
That performance simply won’t work — statistically or stylistically. While it’s logical for the Bears to steer him toward improving as a pocket passer, that first game should make coach Matt Eberflus and offensive coordinator Luke Getsy question whether they pushed too hard.
The game plan needs to be far more Fields-friendly when the Bears visit the Buccaneers on Sunday, starting with reintroducing the designed runs that showcase his greatest strength. Nearly all his runs were scrambles in the 38-20 loss to the Packers.
Eberflus and Getsy also should consider whether they’ve coached Fields to be too careful in the passing attack, where he seemed hesitant to throw aggressively downfield against the Packers. He needs to take some chances, especially when throwing to wide receiver DJ Moore.
Eberflus said, “We always want him to look downfield,” but Fields said after the game the short passes was “just the game plan” and would’ve been more effective if the Bears had blocked better on those plays.
Running is always going to be part of Fields’ game — no quarterback, not even Lamar Jackson, can match his ability — and if the Bears can’t tolerate the risk that comes with playing that way, Fields shouldn’t be their quarterback. Preserving this version of him doesn’t seem to be accomplishing anything.
Fields said going into last season one of the things he liked most about Getsy’s approach — the implication being that this was a key difference from the way former coach Matt Nagy taught — was that he wanted Fields to play more naturally rather than trying to fit a specific archetype.
“I felt like I was trying to be a little bit robotic, whereas Luke tries to — follow some rules, but at the end of the day, you have to feel it out,” Fields told the Sun-Times in August 2022. “You have to be a player on the field. You can’t really overthink.
“That’s my biggest mindset change from last year to this year: Just get the job done. No matter how you do it, this and that, they really only care about results... If you get the job done, you get the job done.”
It’s hard for a team that’s now 25-42 since its last playoff berth to be picky about how the job gets done.
The Bears need to make sure Fields is playing freely. If there’s a voice in his head saying, “Don’t run, don’t run,” they’ve mishandled this. With his skillset, running and passing should be complementary and intertwined. This isn’t quite as egregious as Nagy seemingly trying to turn him into Alex Smith, but it’s still problematic.
He needs to play a more natural game. And the Bears need to see where that gets them and how comfortable they feel with it going forward. If Fields can’t succeed doing it that way or the Bears don’t want to be constantly holding their breath and hoping he doesn’t get hurt, they can change course at the end of the season.
But it’s going to be nearly impossible to assess his NFL future unless he gets to play his game.
And Eberflus and Getsy should be incentivized to let them. The stakes are real this season. While the Bears aren’t chasing a championship yet, going 3-14 and averaging 19.4 points per game isn’t going to be simply shrugged off in the name of rebuilding like last season.
That should spur some urgency.
It took the Bears until the 11-day break between their Week 6 game against the Commanders and their Week 7 visit to the Patriots to make major offensive changes last season.
At that stage, they were 2-4 and averaging 16.7 points per game. Fields had completed just 63 passes in six games, had more interceptions than touchdown passes and wasn’t doing a ton to offset that at 47 yards rushing per game.
And again, that was somewhat tolerable because everyone knew what last season was. But now there are expectations. Think how differently that kind of start would sit with everyone now if he repeated it.
There also was some rationalization last season that Fields and Getsy, as well as a host of other fledgling players, might need time to mesh. That shouldn’t be the case now, given their extended time working together and the fact that most of the new players are talented and experienced.
When Getsy retooled the offense with designed runs, the Bears gave their most impressive performance of the season in a 33-14 rout of the Patriots on Monday Night Football. Fields also seemed to thrive in the no-huddle offense, which is another thing Getsy could emphasize this week.
From the New England game through the end of the season, Fields had a 92.3 passer rating, better than a 2-to-1 touchdown-to-interception ratio and rushed for 95.7 yards per game. The Bears averaged 27.5 points in those games and almost got some wins.
Fields needs to be better than even that to become the Bears’ franchise quarterback, but it was a good starting point.
They don’t have a big gap between games until Weeks 5 and 6, when they have 10 days off between visiting the Commanders and hosting the Vikings. But Getsy’s familiarity with Fields should enable him to make meaningful changes now rather than wait for that.
This isn’t an overreaction to the first game of the season. It’s a correction that must happen soon so Fields and the Bears don’t waste too much time going down the wrong track. The best thing for him and the team this season is for Fields to play a style that’s comfortable for him, and the Bears can decide at the end of it if that’s what they want in 2024 and beyond.
