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Through no fault of his own—and, really, through no fault of his current coach or general manager—Justin Fields is going to take snaps under center in 2022 surrounded by what is on paper one of the NFL’s worst rosters.
This offseason, Allen Robinson escaped the Bears in free agency. James Daniels, a 24-year-old who is one of the more promising young guards in football, also moved on. Most of their ascending players with value who hit the market were plucked, with their most significant incoming contract being a defensive tackle from one of the worst run defenses in football last year (the Chargers’ Justin Jones), whose deal can be shaken out of after one year, anyway. Their roadmap thus far has been so obviously defeatist that salary cap expert Jason Fitzgerald called it a complete teardown.
And yet, it’s strange that our narrative on Fields hasn’t seemed to shift with those parameters. It’s being seen as a “prove-it” year for the sophomore QB, like it is for many, in a league where we’ve been spoiled seeing a handful of other young quarterbacks before him take the fabled second-year leap. But in a lot of ways, it feels like Fields is in an impossible situation to succeed.
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It begs the question: As recent conversation around the league offers a new perspective on strategic losing or roster reconstruction, and as we discuss the long-term ramifications of tanking as it relates to head coaches, why do we seem to care less about the players the process inevitably harms? Why isn’t there a way for them to opt out or transfer if a team isn’t putting their best interests in mind?
I wrote about Fields in late September of his rookie season, suggesting that he, or Trevor Lawrence, or any rookie quarterback who arrives in the NFL and sees a brushfire of chaos in his facility shouldn’t be scared to demand a trade. Many of their situations become too late before they realize it. However, the more we come to grips with the reality of roster teardowns, the more use we might have for some kind of formal process, like a waiver or transfer portal. Fields, or any player in a less-than-ideal situation, should be given the chance to work with the NFLPA to request a different assignment. This would force teams to maintain more of a consistent competitive spirit, or, at the very least, be more open with their fan base about the path forward and offer promising players some sort of back-end protection.
Look around the league at the rest of the quarterbacks from the 2021 class. The Jets tried to trade for Tyreek Hill. They signed one of the best free-agent tight ends, who is also a solid blocker and may have saved Joe Burrow from being completely torn apart in Cincinnati last year. They spent top dollar on a guard. They’ll almost certainly add offensive line help with one of their four top-40 picks. The Jaguars spent a comical amount of money pacifying Trevor Lawrence, though we could debate whether that money is actually well-spent. Last year, the Patriots provided Mac Jones with two brand-new tight ends and two wide receivers. There is a behavior of encouragement and support that seems largely absent in Chicago.
To be clear, we’re not pointing the finger at Ryan Poles, the team’s new general manager. He had no choice. Fields’s selection in the 2021 draft came at the intersection of politics and desperation. The Bears’ decision makers tried to use Fields as a shield with which to avoid a seemingly inevitable regime change. That didn’t work, and the cost of Fields both in draft capital and in related, short-term roster management created an untenable roster situation for this coming season (and really, if you think about it, for last season as well). Poles is doing what any smart general manager would do. He’s not throwing irresponsible money at a situation. He’s not sacrificing future draft capital. He is, in fact, trading away players like Khalil Mack to acquire more capital. This is a plan that is best for Chicago moving forward as an organization. Just not for the quarterback.
In actuality, trading Fields would be a way to throw the Bears’ rebuild into hyperdrive. Any of the teams currently talking themselves into members of this year’s weak rookie class would probably be happy to throw current and future picks at a player who still has value in his potential. Poles & Co. could collect picks, as is fashionable for new brain trusts, given that they appear unlikely to rush to contention on a timeline that takes advantage of Fields’s rookie contract, anyway.
Of course, we know they will instead opt for another year of evaluating the player they already have on hand. But with Fields, in particular, a player whose feel for the game was demolished behind puzzling, protection-free game plans and a substandard roster in 2021, how can we reasonably expect him to improve in Year 2 when the roster around him has only gotten worse? A scheme change might help, but as good an offensive coordinator as Luke Getsy might be, it’s going to be difficult to overcome some of the harsh, talent-based realities they’ll face this year.
And then what? That’s the question I’d be asking now if I were Fields. Maybe that’s too pessimistic, but what are the Bears going to do for me once they have the players, the cap space and the roster constructed how they envision? How long will that take? Are they going to treat me like Baker Mayfield, shoving me out the door after one crack at a tenable roster situation? The Browns’ pursuit of Deshaun Watson did more than release a stench around the NFL. It very well could have heightened the cynicism of every developing player who watched Mayfield gut his way through a shoulder injury, get promised he’d be taken care of and then abandoned in the most publicly embarrassing way possible.
Quarterbacks don’t normally overcome difficult roster situations. Russell Wilson wasn’t overcoming his, even with DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett. Matt Ryan wasn’t overcoming his, even with Kyle Pitts and Calvin Ridley, or a year with both Ridley and Julio Jones. We tend to gloss over the histories of our modern greats, as if the Eli Mannings, Ben Roethlisbergers and Tom Bradys of the world conjured trash into foie gras on their own, when in reality there was so much back-end scheming, coach hiring, coach firing, player cutting and trading that benefited them specifically, helping them grow.
We’re not saying Fields is any of those players. He might be, as one talent evaluator said before the draft, a player who deserved a mid-round grade coming out of college. He might actually have poor mechanics, like the Bears’ front office seems to be discussing anonymously. Regardless, he deserves a chance to find that out in an environment conducive to his growth.
The league is in such an awful place with quarterback development. A transfer portal would force teams to develop, or empower players to develop themselves and take away the internal politics that derail promising careers. It would prevent someone from trying to fight their way from underneath the wheel of a steamroller, which seems to be the view from Fields’s vantage point right now.
