KANSAS CITY, Mo. — As if Bears quarterback Justin Fields didn’t have enough to address in his own performance, especially heading into a game against the defending champions, he unnecessarily raised the stakes by critiquing his coaches and saying he was ready to clear his head and play his way.
When asked what that would like, he responded sharply, “You’ll see soon.”
That proved wildly overconfident. The Chiefs had an untouchable lead on the Bears in the second quarter and pummeled them 41-10 on Sunday.
They dropped to 0-3 while getting blown out by the quarterback they could’ve drafted and the coach they fired, as the Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes lit them up with three touchdown passes before mercifully calling it a day in the third quarter and offensive coordinator Matt Nagy grinned on the sideline.
Fields made everything worse at a time when the Bears surely thought that was impossible. Their week of strife, including the curious resignation of defensive coordinator Alan Williams, ended with ineptitude and embarrassment at Arrowhead Stadium.
Lots of teams lose to the Chiefs, but it’s not usually this ugly.
Fields completed just 11 of 22 passes for 99 yards with a touchdown and an interception for a 58.7 passer rating. He was sacked three times and ran for 47 yards on 11 carries. With a 12.5 passer rating at halftime, he was bad enough to warrant a benching.
The problem for the Bears is that Fields has had more games that looked like this than whatever he imagined when he said he would turn it loose and, “say eff it and go out there and play football how I know to play football.” In his 28 career starts, he has thrown for fewer than 200 yards and posted a sub-90 passer rating 18 times.
No team in the NFL has a quarterback as good as Mahomes, but several are good enough to beat him on the right day. The teams with a quarterback like Jalen Hurts, Joe Burrow or Justin Herbert know they at least have a chance, and that’s what the Bears need if they’re serious about chasing a championship.
That’s such a far-fetched dream at this point. They look as far away from it as they did last season when general manager Ryan Poles had stripped the roster in favor of future assets and they were the worst team in the NFL.
