Justin Fields staged a photo shoot Thursday.
As the Bears were beginning practice, Fields pointed across the field to a bank of television cameras shooting warmups. Offensive coordinator Luke Getsy approached Fields and gave him a hug, and the quarterback waved his right hand to the cameras as if he was on a parade float.
It will take more than that for Fields’ disastrous comments of a day earlier to be forgotten.
Wednesday, Fields pointed to his coaches when asked why he was, in his own words, playing “robotic.” When practice ended and he realized he’d said the wrong thing, Fields’ clarification made it worse. Rather than admitting he crossed the line in ripping his coaches, Fields took the tired tack of blaming the media, saying their job was to “get clicks” and claiming, incorrectly, that they took his quote out of context.
Strike 1. Strike 2.
After crossing one line, he crossed another.
“When you just say that, if you paint the picture on the inside out, y’all are trying to split us up as a team,” Fields said.
Fields’ own words are the only ones that could do that. They were worse than his 61.1 passer rating Sunday or his 5-22 career record.
His words compelled general manager Ryan Poles to call a press conference before Thursday’s practice in which he seemed far more interested in trying to tamp down the Fields forest fire than he was in offering any real detail on defensive coordinator Alan Williams’ resignation the day before.
Fields’ own words prompted offensive coordinator Luke Getsy to spend most of 15 minutes — all but three questions — answering to what his quarterback said Thursday. Getsy has better things to worry about, too, like not calling screens from his own end zone.
A message from Justin Fields and Luke Getsy. #Bears @foxkickoff pic.twitter.com/mZ0iu11W1j
— Cassie Carlson (@CassieCarlsonTV) September 21, 2023
Asked about Fields’ comments, tight end Cole Kmet said that the Bears understand the pressure he’s under, both inside and outside Halas Hall. Fields’ best receiver, DJ Moore, seemed unsure what to make of what he said.
“Uh, I mean, he might have been speaking his mind, I don’t know … ” he said. “We still got a job to do from the top down from the coaches to us. We ain’t robots and we gonna go out there and play the game that we been playing since we were kids and make it that way the best way we can.”
Everyone wants to play freely, Moore said, “but you still gotta play within the scheme of things, and then we add our own flair to it.”
Fields needs to add something. He has a 70.7 passer rating, while the Packers’ Jordan Love leads the NFL in the metric. The Vikings’ Kirk Cousins and the Lions’ Jared Goff rank second and third, in fact.
In defending Fields, Poles sounded as the Bears could have seen Fields’ struggles coming. In training camp, he said, “quarterbacks live in a bubble” and “can chill out” because they don’t get hit. In preseason games, the Bears played Fields less often that they wanted because of a banged-up offensive line.
“Then we move to the regular season and some of these live reps are happening now and we have to build through that for him to take the next step,” he said.
Growing pains? How about just pain?
Poles said that the Bears don’t believe Fields is a finger-pointer. But he acted like one Wednesday.
Earlier this month, Mariners pitcher George Kirby ripped manager Scott Servais when he said he wished he hadn’t been sent back out for the seventh inning. He met with the manager after his comments and again the next morning, and then apologized publicly.
He didn’t blame anyone but himself.
“Obviously,” he said, “I screwed up.”
Fields should take note.
