CHICAGO — This is a story of excitement, of hope, of grand dreams. This is a story of one city’s thirst to have its forever quarterback in place and the monumental challenges to make that a reality. This is a story about greatness versus weakness, about possibility versus probability, about speculation and forecasting.
This is the book on Chicago Bears quarterback Justin Fields and his quest to become the no-doubt savior for one of the NFL’s charter franchises.
Foreword
Pick a word to describe Justin Fields’ 2022 season.
Encouraging? Spectacular? Uneven?
They all might fit.
Now pick the most apt description for the soon-to-be 24-year-old quarterback’s long-term future.
Intriguing? Unlimited? Uncertain?
The NFL world has been dizzying itself in assessing who Fields is as a player right now and what that might mean for who he will become.
At the scouting combine this week in Indianapolis, the chatter has remained wide-ranging with continued belief in some circles that the Bears quarterback has an opening to become one of the league’s brightest stars. On the other side of the discussion, concerns remain about how quickly — if at all — Fields will be able to reduce his current limitations.
“No one wants to play against that kid. I can tell you that much,” one league executive said. “And if you have him, I can only imagine how much it would stimulate your own imagination for what’s possible. He’s pretty damn talented.”
That same exec, though, retains significant reservations about proclaiming Fields a can’t-miss, top-tier star, pointing out that the Bears passing attack was too feeble last season to downplay. With the Bears held below 150 net passing yards in 10 of Fields’ 15 starts, quarterback accountability and improvement must be at the center of the team’s resurgence equation.
“He does a lot of the big things really well. Now figure out the simple,” the exec said. “Do the simple things regularly. Just hit the (bleeping) check-down every now and then. Don’t try to make every play a highlight.”
What’s undisputed is that Fields has arrived on center stage as one of the league’s most compelling characters to hyperanalyze and discuss as the Bears chart a course to a more promising future. Fields’ explosive athleticism is undeniable. His playmaking artistry is proven. His leadership skills are impressive. Yet his passing production lags behind where many evaluators believe it should be after two seasons.
The man who matters most in the assessment, Bears general manager Ryan Poles, might have provided the most spot-on thumbnail review Tuesday in a hallway inside the J.W. Marriott. Poles reiterated that he intends for Fields to be his starting quarterback in 2023.
“His athletic ability and ability to create explosive plays were special,” he said. “Now, what we’ve had discussions about — and I’ve talked about it openly — is he has to take the next step in his game. I’m excited to see that because I think he’s going to.”
There you have it. That have should been enough — but definitely won’t be — to squelch all the “Should the Bears trade Justin Fields?” noise echoing from made-for-debate sports talk shows. But it does give the Bears direction at a pivotal point in a potentially landmark offseason.
So now what?
Count NFL Network analyst Daniel Jeremiah among those curious to see where this story goes. Jeremiah says the current evaluation of Fields is “both easy and complicated.”
“It’s easy in that you can see the playmaking ability and what he has done with his legs and the competitiveness and the toughness (he has). That’s easy to see,” Jeremiah said. “But then it’s complicated because how do you evaluate him with what he has and with who he is working with?”
Jeremiah firmly believes Fields has earned the right to take a big swing at proving who he is in 2023 with a better supporting cast, assuming he has satisfied everyone within Halas Hall with his commitment and drive.
“If Justin is doing what he needs to be doing from that standpoint,” Jeremiah said, “I would be like: ‘Oh, this guy has so much ability and he is committed to it. Let’s give him some help and try to build around him.’”
That’s almost certainly the path Poles and the Bears will take in the coming weeks and months, eager to squeeze more out of the excitement Fields generated in Chicago last season.
1. Flash flood
In late October, a few hours before the Bears kicked off a Monday night game against the New England Patriots, Poles spoke with reporters inside the Gillette Stadium press box and expressed his desire to see Fields take necessary steps in his development. Specifically, Poles wanted to see Fields speed up his decision making and find a rhythm for “executing faster.”
He also prodded Fields to continue showing playmaking prowess. “With young players,” Poles said, “you’re looking for the flashes.”
At that point, the Bears were in a deep offensive rut, a 2-4 team averaging just 293.7 yards and 15.5 points per game. Fields had stumbled through six starts with only four touchdown passes and one rushing score to go with six turnovers. He had only 869 passing yards and a 72.7 passer rating, which ranked 32nd in the NFL.
At that point, a familiar anxiety percolated through Chicago.
As if on cue, though, a flash flood began that night in Foxborough, Mass., with Fields throwing for 179 yards, rushing for 82 more and contributing two touchdowns to what seemed like a statement road victory over Bill Belichick and Co.
Bears 33, Patriots 14.
Included in that barrage was a nifty 25-yard sidearm go-ahead touchdown pass to Khalil Herbert on a screen play with Fields getting blasted as he threw. More significantly, the Bears had retooled their offense during a 10-day gap between games, encouraging Fields to use his running ability as a weapon more often. Against the Patriots, the Bears called 10 designed quarterback runs. Fields also converted a third-and-14 play with a brilliant 20-yard scramble. The Patriots seemed addled.
Suddenly the Bears’ entire operation became more dynamic. After scoring just 93 points in the first six games with a 35.6% third-down conversion rate, the Bears scored on seven of their first nine possessions against the Patriots while converting 11 of 18 third downs.
Fields seemed in total control. The energy surge from that victory was important.
“That gives you a bit of this self-satisfaction that you’re on the right track,” offensive coordinator Luke Getsy said.
Getsy knew the tweaks the coaching staff made during that 10-day window between games had served as a key to unlock several elements of the offense.
“Justin was able to shine what he has that no one else has,” Getsy said. “That created more freedom for Justin. It created more confidence for Justin. It just allowed for what he has within him to come out a little more.”
The fireworks show had just begun.
2. ‘He hits the NOS’
That Monday night breakthrough in New England became the catalyst of a 21-day eruption in which the Bears rolled up 1,537 yards and scored 124 points over four games. Fields accounted for 13 touchdowns — eight through the air and five on the ground.
That explosive stretch in late October and early November stimulated Chicago’s imagination with the added freedom Fields had and the elevated confidence he felt creating undeniable sizzle.
From the coaches box at Soldier Field, quarterbacks coach Andrew Janocko watched with a jaw that dropped like a yo-yo as Fields repeatedly showed off his special speed and elite explosion.
“You remember the ‘Fast and Furious’ movies?” Janocko said. “He hits the NOS.”
Indeed, Fields has almost audible acceleration with a dizzying burst and a knack for knowing how to use it.
The Next Gen Stats velocity trackers nearly short-circuited with Fields topping 20 mph on at least nine occasions last season.
An escape act here, an Olympic sprint there. Fields hit 21.23 mph on a 41-yard scramble against the Dallas Cowboys in Week 8. (Alas, that gain was negated by a holding penalty.)
He clocked in at 20.33 mph against the Miami Dolphins the following week, then hit 20.15 mph against the Detroit Lions on Nov. 13.
In Week 13, Fields expressed disappointment when his top speed registered at “only” 20.15 mph during a 56-yard touchdown dash against the Green Bay Packers. “I felt like I was moving kind of slow to be honest,” Fields said.
No quarterback in NFL history had three touchdown runs of 50 yards or more for their career. Fields had three in five games, turning heads across the league as one of the most explosive open-field runners in the game — regardless of position.
“That’s something Justin was blessed with,” Janocko said. “It’s just different. And it’s pretty impressive.”
Perhaps most impressive was Fields’ 61-yard, off-script touchdown run against the Dolphins in Week 9, a play on which he aborted a desired pass attempt to Darnell Mooney over the middle and somehow, as he pulled his arm down, shifted into top gear while in midair.
It was a breathtaking magic trick, part of a record-setting 178-yard rushing performance folded into a 1,143-yard season. That made Fields just the third quarterback in NFL history to top 1,000 rushing yards in a season.
It’s notable that seven of the eight runs Fields tore off for at least 25 yards last season — including all three of his 50-plus-yard TD runs plus a 39-yard near-touchdown against the Philadelphia Eagles — came at Soldier Field, generating a major electricity surge through an entire stadium.
Bears fans were exhilarated with a giddiness they previously knew from the playmaking brilliance of Gale Sayers and Walter Payton and Devin Hester. That’s the stuff right there, high-level NFL juice. It’s real. And it’s spectacular.
Said one coach whose team played against the Bears: “He’s scary to prepare for, man. You put on that tape and he’s running all over the place and making plays. It’s highlight-reel stuff within almost every game when he got outside the pocket. You’re sitting there going, ‘Man, this guy is making standout pro football players look really, really average.’ ”
3. The next step
Fields’ highest highs as a playmaker in 2022 were impressive and energizing to just about everyone inside the Bears organization. Still, a handful of league evaluators insist Poles can’t become intoxicated by those feelings as he continues a detailed and critical assessment of his current QB1.
One coach noted that he was both impressed and confounded by Fields, whose explosiveness was obvious but wasn’t reflected with team success.
Fields sure looks the part. His big-play brilliance jumps off the tape, particularly when he is running. He also delivers a pretty deep ball that helped him accumulate 13 completions of at least 30 yards last season.
That list included a spectacular 40-yard TD pass to Dante Pettis against the Washington Commanders; a 56-yard dart to Darnell Mooney against the New York Giants; deep completions of 56 and 49 yards to Equanimeous St. Brown and N’Keal Harry against the Packers; and a 44-yard missile to Velus Jones that cut through a 25-mph wind on Christmas Eve against the Buffalo Bills.
It’s no wonder Fields’ 2022 highlights have been blended into high-octane Michael Bay-esque hype trailers on social media. Of course, those are both entertaining and invigorating to watch.
Yet by the end of last season, the Bears had lost more games than any team in the NFL — and any team in franchise history — with an offense that ranked 28th in total yardage and 23rd in scoring.
“It’s honestly hard to wrap your brain around,” one league executive said.
Specifically, the exec emphasized, he was stunned to see how impotent the Bears passing offense was statistically, averaging a paltry 130.5 yards per game — more than 66 yards out of the top 25.
That average was not only a league worst in 2022, it registered as the sixth-worst in the past 25 seasons — out of a pack of 795 teams.
“They’re last in the league or right at the bottom in almost every major passing category,” the exec said, singling out the sum of negative plays — 55 sacks and 13 Fields turnovers — as slipups the quarterback must own and reduce. “There are enough flaws to give you pause.”
Evaluators around the league also have looked at Fields’ completion percentage (60.4%, 31st), interception percentage (3.5%, 31st) and yards per attempt (7.1, 17th) with a raised eyebrow.
“As many plays as he makes (off script), the other side of the story was that if you were able to make him stay inside the pocket, life for him became a little more difficult,” the defensive coach said. “It’s that way for a lot of young quarterbacks who are scramblers early in their careers. So defensively, that becomes the approach you go to. Make him stay in the pocket as often as you can.”
In 2023, Fields will have to become more dangerous in the pocket while also excelling in the role of closer. His six fourth-quarter interceptions last season were second only to the Houston Texans’ Davis Mills, who threw almost twice as many fourth-quarter passes.
Fields’ 61.3 fourth-quarter passer rating also is concerning to many in the league, particularly for the quarterback of a last-place team that was so frequently playing from behind and should have had ample opportunity for stat-padding late-game production.
In 15 Fields starts, the Bears had 20 possessions that began in the fourth quarter with a chance to tie or take the lead. They succeeded in that mission just three times and only once in the final five minutes — on a zero-yard field-goal drive against the lowly Texans after a Roquan Smith interception.
In nine career division starts, Fields has an 80.9 passer rating. The Bears won only one of those games — in Fields’ second start — and lost the last eight by an average score of 31-18.
4. ‘Keep an eye on ...’
One league source, who strongly believes Fields has an impressive career ahead, recommended breaking Fields’ 15-start body of work from 2022 into thirds. It has been well-documented, the source emphasized, that the Bears overcame a frustrating start and seemed to find a clearer identity on offense in late October, landing on a production springboard.
The eye test backed up that assertion. So did the numbers. In the first five games, the Bears averaged 274 yards and 17.2 points. In the next five, those averages spiked to 386 yards and 26.2 points, clear indicators of progress.
But the final five-game segment registers as too notable to ignore: 277 yards and 17.2 points per game, much more similar to the Bears’ early struggles than their late October/early November uptick.
The Bears didn’t top 20 points in a single game after Thanksgiving.
There is context and nuance within all of that, with some league evaluators shifting a lot of the pressure to Poles to assemble a more competitive roster and a supporting cast that can help Fields become much more consistent.
But if the Bears are truly on a quest to use Fields as the engine for an extended run of championship contention, they also must keep their quarterback’s performance under an intense microscope and not fall into the trap of believing the adrenaline rush from Oct. 24 to Nov. 20 signified a permanent breakthrough.
One source who has studied Fields suggested reviewing his second-season deficiencies like a physician performing an annual physical exam. Through that lens, the source said, there’s nothing so worrisome to recommend Fields drive immediately to a team of specialists for urgent testing.
“But,” the source said, “there are certainly some ‘You’re going to want to keep an eye on that’ issues to keep on the radar. Then let’s circle back next year and see where things are at.”
That checklist includes Fields’ overall pocket presence, his ability to surf in choppy conditions and his competence in reading defenses quicker and reacting promptly to what he’s seeing.
There’s also concern that if Fields needs to remain a run-heavy playmaker for the offense to succeed, the Bears may get stuck playing a perpetual game of chicken. On the freeway. With their most valuable franchise asset.
“Are you going to be able to keep him healthy?” one exec said. “And how? On the surface alone, we’re still talking about a quarterback who has been stuck on the sideline more often than he’s won.”
Indeed, Fields heads into his third season having missed seven starts because of injury or illness while accumulating only five victories.
5. Seeking balance
Inside Halas Hall, the Bears understand every aspect of this and refuse to ignore one clear conclusion: In 2022, their passing game was totally broken.
An offensive line that was ordinary at its very best and shuffled through 10 starting combinations in 17 games was a significant part of the problem. So was a receiving corps that lacked enough high-end talent and depth to make a major difference on a regular basis.
Tight end Cole Kmet was the team leader in receptions (50), receiving yards (544) and receiving touchdowns (seven). Darnell Mooney (40-493-2) was the most productive wide receiver despite missing the final five games with an ankle injury.
Through that lens, Poles may be as responsible for the Bears’ 2023 improvement efforts as Fields is, needing to supply more playmaking firepower plus sturdiness to the offensive line.
Getsy also understands his responsibility as the coordinator to push for much greater balance after the Bears led the NFL in rushing while finishing last in passing.
The Bears were one of two teams last season — and one of only 10 over the last 20 years — to finish with more rushing yards than passing yards. Getsy understands that can’t happen again.
“That’s real,” he said. “It’s about sustainability. Teams that are really good in one phase but not the other will struggle. It’s not sustainable.
“We were fortunate to be as good as we were at (running the ball), so we were able to find success throughout the year. But to go where we want to go, there has to be better balance.”
Poles also has been direct and consistent in stressing Fields’ need to take big steps forward as a passer in 2023. Don’t forget, the second-year GM arrived in Chicago from Kansas City, where Chiefs star Patrick Mahomes has averaged 301 passing yards and 2.4 touchdown passes over 94 career starts, regular season and postseason combined.
Fields’ averages through 25 starts: 162 passing yards and one TD pass.
One league exec offered a modest goal for the Bears: “If they can stay at the top of the league in rushing and then maybe climb to 20th (in passing) next season, maybe now you’ve really got something. And maybe that’s just adding two more weapons and strengthening the line for Justin.”
Bears coach Matt Eberflus has continued to pepper Fields with an elementary directive: Don’t be afraid to take what the defense gives.
“I know that’s coach talk, but that’s really what he needs to do,” Eberflus said this week, specifically emphasizing Fields’ need to become more disciplined with his decisions to scramble.
To that point ...
6. Process-oriented
In the second quarter of Fields’ final start last season, he short-circuited on a straightforward play that resulted in a Bears turnover. On first down near midfield against the Lions, the Bears dialed up a max-protection shot play with receiver Dante Pettis running a corner route from the left side of the formation.
Only two Bears were in pattern plus a safety-valve running back, essentially setting up Fields for a one-read, see-it-and-rip-it throw. If Pettis was taken away, it should have instantly become a check-down.
In live action and again during film review, Bears coaches watched Pettis run a crisp route to create separation. They wished Fields had pulled the trigger. With a decisive and accurate throw, a gain of 20-plus yards was available.
Sure, Fields didn’t have a squeaky-clean pocket. But it wasn’t collapsed either. And even if, as he later relayed to coaches, he hesitated when he saw Lions cornerback Jeff Okudah sinking into a Cover-2 look, his next instinct should have been to divert his eyes quickly and feed the football to running back Khalil Herbert leaking out of the backfield.
“It looked like he was about to throw it to Pettis,” Getsy said. “And then he pulled it down. But even if he didn’t feel comfortable with that spacing (in the secondary), the reaction has to be to drop it off to the back.”
Herbert got caught in congestion during that sequence. But Fields also never looked his way, instead darting into scramble mode with uncharacteristic freneticism and careless ball security.
He tried to rely on his legs as a rescue plan but was drilled from behind by edge rusher James Houston. The football squirted loose. The Lions recovered.
That was one of two Fields giveaways in what he acknowledged was one of his roughest outings of the season. The Bears lost by 31 points.
Against a Lions defense that finished the season last in total defense and 30th in points allowed, the Bears managed only 160 yards, six first downs and three points over their final 11 possessions.
Fields completed seven passes for 75 yards in an indoor game during which the Bears trailed by at least two scores for the final 34 minutes. And within that one discombobulated first-half sequence, Bears coaches highlighted a number of teaching points Fields needs to remain aware of.
For starters, he must make faster decisions in the passing game while also building confidence in both himself and his playmakers to launch a handful of trust throws every game.
Fields’ behind-the-scenes studies and training also must help him improve his reactions when defenses flummox him momentarily.
“That’s probably the next step,” Getsy said. “It’s the application of the information you have collected. … You thought the defense was in one thing, you caught the ball from center and you picked your head up and they turned it into something else. So now how do I apply what I should do as opposed to just relying on my instincts to go make a play?”
Fields will need to strike a healthier balance in 2023 of knowing when to use his electric playmaking gifts as a runner while not trying to make so much magic happen by himself.
For Bears coaches, there was an important lesson within that sequence in Detroit of Fields learning how to better preserve his physical and mental fuel. Even if he hadn’t fumbled and somehow had turned that play into positive yardage, coaches still would have guided him through the errors of the process while noting all the energy he expended unnecessarily.
On that particular lapse, Getsy preached, the Bears had first-and-10 at their 48. A simple 5-yard check-down to Herbert would have been applauded even if it didn’t qualify for a Fox NFL Game Break.
“If you take the check-down,” Getsy said, “now it’s second-and-5 instead of him trying to make a crazy play just to hopefully get it to second-and-5.”
A week before that blowout loss in Detroit, the Bills held Fields to 11 rushing yards and 119 through the air in a 35-13 win. At some point in the loss at Ford Field, Fields strained a hip muscle, and with the Bears having little incentive or desire to win in Week 18, he missed the season finale.
Instead of punctuating an encouraging 2022 season with an exclamation point, Fields spilled a bag of question marks onto the scene.
7. Easy does it
To many league evaluators and observers, Fields’ biggest leaps in 2023 are likely to come from his ability — to borrow a basketball concept — to shoot a higher percentage from inside the paint.
His brilliance in situations with a high degree of difficulty has been impressive. But it’s the catch-and-throw, quick-game concepts, the on-target short passes, the alert and decisive check-downs that will help Fields climb to the next tier of NFL quarterbacks. That requires strong timing. And rhythm. And clean footwork.
Field also has to continue improving his willingness to take the 6-yard gain when his heart is lusting for 30. Behind the scenes, Getsy has pushed Fields to understand one of his biggest weaknesses is “holding on to plays.”
Getsy isn’t implying that Fields has difficulty moving past mistakes or that he allows one slip-up to bleed into another. What Getsy means is that Fields’ admirable hunger to squeeze the biggest possible gain out of a play needs to be better calibrated.
“Sometimes you have to let a play go,” Getsy said. “Know the situation. Are we first-and-10 at the minus-45? Or (is it) third-and-6 with two minutes left in the game? Let’s learn to play the game that way too.”
As the Bears turned Fields loose for the offseason in January, they emphasized his need to marry his footwork with the design of each play and to understand his proven success on outside-the-numbers throws must be complemented by a surgeon’s precision and efficiency on passes over the middle.
For a quarterback who has been held below 200 passing yards in more than three-quarters of his NFL starts, there are important lessons to be learned in understanding how to stack fuel-efficient completions. That will lead to a production uptick that then leads to success for the entire team.
One NFL coach has heard nothing but praise for how Fields approaches his craft and believes his understanding of the game and drive to improve can catalyze a significant breakthrough.
“Now it’s just a matter of having an offense and a coordinator who can work the best combinations for that talent,” the coach said. “And everything else will fall into place.”
For some quarterbacks, that clicks and they ride the escalator to the highest level. “But,” the coach added, “it doesn’t happen for everyone. Some guys get to a certain point and they just stall. Only time will tell.”
Fields’ talent, aptitude and responsiveness to coaching gives the Bears ample belief he will strengthen his weaknesses and make a breakthrough in his third season.
Getsy has been most impressed with how sharp and detailed Fields has been in relaying exactly what he sees, even on plays in which he made a poor decision or errant throw.
On the sidelines and in the film room, Fields has shown an advanced understanding of everything unfolding in front of him.
“It’s the acknowledgment and the confirmation that he’s not playing with his head down,” Getsy said. “It’s proof that there is a lot of excitement to be had. Because he can see it. Being around a lot of quarterbacks or even (playing) myself, there are times you just don’t see it. Like, ‘I don’t really know what I just saw.’
“He’s very clear about what he sees. Now we have to get him to apply that and make those instincts be something for him rather than always having that feeling like he has to go make the play.”
8. The grand vision
Inside Halas Hall, no one questions Fields’ football intelligence or his ability to eventually translate everything he’s seeing in live action in a way he can make consistently productive decisions. But it’s one thing to see and process things correctly. It’s another thing to do so with precision in a matter of milliseconds, play after play, week after week.
“No doubt. That’s why it’s so difficult,” Getsy said. “That’s why not everybody can do this. That’s why it’s a challenge. That’s why this is on TV all the time and it’s talked about so much. It’s because this is a cool challenge that every NFL quarterback gets to face.”
Getsy spent seven seasons in Green Bay and grew to admire how clearly Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers processed the game and explained his decision making, noting that Rodgers “communicates that more clearly than any human being in the world.”
“What’s cool about Justin,” Getsy added, “is that he’s kind of on that path. He has his whys. He sees what he sees and he’s able to communicate that. And then all you do is just reflect, OK, the process tells you (to do) this. Now we need to apply it.”
In Week 12, with a separated left shoulder that kept him out against the New York Jets, Fields had the opportunity to watch eight-year veteran Trevor Siemian operate the Bears offense. It was no small deal that three days after that 31-10 Bears loss, Fields singled out a routine check-down from Siemian to Darrynton Evans as his favorite play of that game.
In all the supercharged, made-for-social-media highlight montages, that completion is nowhere to be found. It was just so basic. Off play action, Siemian identified a cornerback blitz coming from his left, managed his internal clock and threw underneath as soon as he hit the top of his drop. Evans caught the pass 2 yards beyond the line of scrimmage but broke free and turned it into a 33-yard gain and a first-and-goal opportunity.
“Just how fast (Siemian) got to that was very notable to me,” Fields said.
Getsy and Janocko loved hearing that, offering emphatic head nods as another sign that Fields understands where coaches are trying to steer him.
“Justin is a (football) junkie,” Janocko said. “He also understands it’s those type of plays that are critical. Think back to Tom Brady’s first Super Bowl. What did he do on that final two-minute drive against the Rams? All he did was boom, boom, boom. Take the check-down. Take the check-down.
“Justin understands there’s a formula for success and he understands what it’s supposed to look like. So when we see things like that (play), something we’ve talked about, something we’ve repped in practice and then it turns into success, it’s cool to take note of that. That’s part of his development.”
9. ‘He’s a dude. He’s a dog. He’s an alpha.’
Getsy reached the end of his first season with Fields convinced the offense had the quarterback’s fingerprints all over it.
“Our offense took his personality on. I really believe that,” Getsy said. “They all see his selflessness, his grit, his toughness. They took that and they followed him. Justin was the leader of that, both by example and with his words and (the push for) being there for one another. That was the really cool part.”
Make no mistake, Getsy added, there is incredible long-term value in that kind of infectious leadership.
“That might be the most important (quality) from that position,” he said. “Obviously you have to be able to execute. But if you don’t have that first part, when there’s adversity like we had this year, that thing would have crumbled.”
Fields wants so much more — for himself and his team. And his thick skin within an intense grind has become one of his most valuable attributes.
“It just allows you to coach,” Janocko said. “You’re never worried about bruising an ego. You’re not worried about him mentally going into a shell. It allows you to get to work.”
For the most zealous Bears fans, Fields has been stamped with the moniker of “H1M,” as in that dude, the superhero who finally has arrived to rescue a struggling franchise and football-crazed city from decades of aggravation.
Whether used playfully or within a state of delirium, that “H1M” label serves as a presumption, a coronation, a best-case wish that perhaps Fields is on the verge of establishing himself as Chicago’s forever quarterback, the high-powered engine for championship-level achievement.
Inside Halas Hall, Fields has earned the admiration and trust of teammates and coaches alike with his work ethic, his leadership skills and, of course, his playmaking explosion. Defensive tackle Justin Jones has no doubt Fields is the answer.
“Once we start getting some more pieces around him and start building a scheme for him that can really showcase every athletic talent he has and every ability that he has,” Jones said, “it’s going to be real, real dangerous out here.”
And even as outside speculation has swirled that the Bears could consider trading Fields this spring, those who have worked closest with him in Lake Forest are gearing up to lift him to new heights.
“He’s still so young and raw in this thing. That’s the coolest part,” Getsy said. “We’re excited to see how far we can take this and see how far he can go.”
“Spend five minutes with the kid and you know that’s he’s a dude,” Janocko added. “He’s a dog. He’s an alpha. This guy wants to be it.”
For Poles, the 2023 offseason is about to become a major test of his roster-building proficiency. On top of that, his next big move at quarterback will be defining. Whether that’s riding with Fields for a “wait-and-see” season and recalibrating from there; eventually signing him to a nine-figure, long-term extension; or changing direction with a new, hand-picked “chosen one” in the next couple years, the plotline will remain compelling.
That’s what makes the 2023 season so pivotal and fascinating. Ideally, Fields would stay healthy enough to play most if not all of the season. That would push his career start total to 40 or above by next January, greatly reducing the gray area that continues to exist within the leaguewide assessment and internal interpretation of who Fields can become.
There’s no question about Fields’ own vision.
“He wants this to be his franchise,” Janocko said in January. “He wants this to be his city.”
Asked for his reaction to that proclamation, Fields didn’t budge.
“I feel like it’s already mine,” he said. “The guys in here know how hard I work. They know what I want to accomplish and they know my mindset overall.
“It’s really just trying to get guys on the same page and (having) that mindset and that culture to where no matter what we go through, nothing can faze us. It’s having that swagger, having that confidence going into every game like, ‘They have to play us. They have to beat us.’”
True to his nature, Fields seemed confident and comfortable with the stage and the stakes. He has shown eagerness to continue his ongoing NFL test.
So much of this story remains to be written. It will continue in the coming weeks with Poles’ push to get his young quarterback more help. From there, Fields will take over with the direction of the franchise in his hands.
