Bears quarterback Justin Fields emerged as one of the NFL’s most exciting players last season, and the expectation is he’ll take another step forward in his third season.
Fields has the potential to develop into the next great young quarterback in the league, but there’s one player who already counts him among the best.
Texans rookie quarterback C.J. Stroud shared his top five quarterbacks in the NFL right now, which included Philadelphia’s Jalen Hurts, Kansas City’s Patrick Mahomes, Cincinnati’s Joe Burrow, Buffalo’s Josh Allen and Fields.
Update: The Top-5 QBs in the NFL according to #Texans rookie C.J. Stroud:
1) #Eagles Jalen Hurts
2) #Chiefs Patrick Mahomes
3) #Bengals Joe Burrow
4) #Bills Josh Allen
5) #Bears Justin FieldsAdded that he "Likes Lamar too." pic.twitter.com/8wy18Zs9ab
— Dov Kleiman (@NFL_DovKleiman) June 4, 2023
Fields and Stroud are former college teammates at Ohio State, where Stroud backed up Fields as a redshirt freshman in 2020.
While the Bears only won three games last season, Fields was a big reason why the team was competitive in most of their contests. He became just the third quarterback in NFL history to rush for 1,000 yards in a single season. Fields broke records sometimes on an almost weekly basis — and he did it all without a strong supporting cast.
“I was proud of him,” Stroud said at the NFL Combine. “There’s so many times when you get knocked down, but I feel like a true man’s character is when you get knocked down, you get back up. And he’s gotten up every time and he’s stepped up to the plate and he hasn’t blamed nobody, he hasn’t pointed no fingers or anything. That just shows you what type of man he is and what type of family he comes from.
“You get hit so many times in the face and you have to make plays using your feet. And he ain’t no damn running back. He’s a quarterback. He can sling that rock. I’m gonna stand up for my brother every time, and he’s gonna do great things in his career and I’m excited to play with him.”
