I’m sure you’re right about Houston building its team to be ready for Stroud to make that kind of impact. But they needed him when the time was right.
The Bears, despite not having the draft capital Houston had, have also built what could be a competitive team with a spark from a good young QB. DJ Moore is better than any WRs Houston fielded this year, and the Bears’ running game is stronger, too. With the #1 pick, they have the best chance they’re ever likely to have to draft the next Stroud. It’s a swing they need to take.
Besides … Collins more than doubled his stats this year catching passes from Stroud. Moore had his best season but it was basically in line with his Carolina production, and Fields is the best QB he’s ever played with.
Well, OK, let’s agree they’re about equal. Doesn’t change the point that the '24 Bears will be at least as well positioned to benefit from a breakout rookie QB as the '23 Texans were.
Or to benefit from a 4th year QB that has learned a lot from his first 3 years, like Jordan Love. Except Fields has been in a baptism of fire and roster destruction and has come out the other side on a clear upward trajectory due to experience, and has stayed the same person, professional, growth oriented, great teammate, nobody gives him less than 10/10 as a person. Doing all that in this market? Get the right OC that knows how to tailer our offense to Fields clear strengths. Add some key players from our great draft position and free agency. Why can’t we be great next year?
Holy cow, did you see Love dissect Dallas? Fields has never looked that confident or locked in against a decent defense.
I’ll grant that Fields’ “upbringing” in the NFL has been deeply suboptimal. Nagy may have ruined him, and Getsy did him few favors. Whereas Love was basically kept in a controlled environment for three years learning from a Hall-of-Fame QB and a head coach who actually understands modern offense. If the tables had been turned, maybe Fields would be the emerging star and Love the question mark.
I’ll also grant that Fields seems like a terrific person and a tough competitor, and that his teammates genuinely love him. And I’ll even add that he’s the most exciting Bear player I’ve had the privilege to watch since Devin Hester, or maybe even Walter Payton.
But none of that changes the fact that, as it stands, Fields is nowhere near the QB or the building block that Love or Stroud is. Maybe the right OC plus some better weapons could change that … but that’s what we thought about Jay Cutler all those years, too.
There is little doubt in my mind that Love benefitted greatly by sitting and learning for 3 years. His college game tape from 2019 was underwhelming, and he struggled with inaccuracy and decision making. But you can see how much of his game was learned from watching Rodgers (off platform throws, multiple arm angles) and from the Packers coaches (pocket awareness, reading defenses). His first TD pass to Wicks on Sunday had him using cadence to get the defense to show something, then adjusting protections having Kraft stay in to help block the blitz, and knowing exactly where to throw the ball. Next level QBing. But not something he could have done 3 years ago. And he did it almost all game.
I think Fields can do that stuff in spots, but not a whole game. He seems to get too flustered, too quickly, and relies on his legs to make things happen instead of running the offense. I think a good chunk of that is that he doesn’t trust the coaches/system. Heck, he all but said as much when he said the coaches were giving him too much coaching and he just needed to play his game. That seeming unwillingness or inability to trust the system/coaches to develop into a QB who can run a NFL system is the biggest thing stopping his development. So I’m not sure if Fields and Love had swapped places, Fields would be successful.
I do think that it would have been better for Fields to sit for a couple years so that he could learn to trust the coaches/system though.
It absolutely blows my mind, as a Bears fan all my life that has watched every game since 1992, that this can be said about a BEARS QB by those advocating to move on from him and draft a rookie hoping for instant lightning. Walter Payton. Hall of Famer. Devin Hester. Hall of Fame finalist and should be already in as the greatest returner that ever has been or will be. Justin Fields mentioned as being as exciting to watch as these two, and also saying, but yeah, he hasn’t led a totally rebuilding team under two different regimes to a Superbowl in 3 years, so lets just give him up and spin the roulette wheel again. We’ve had almost 50 different QBs in the time the Packers have had 3. We have one admittedly as exciting as two of our all time great players, but because he’s been asked to lead a team of undrafted free agents to start a total teardown project, which has only just started to turn around and show promise, all that losing is his fault, so dump him. If Justin and Eberflus lead us to a disappointing season, we’ll be in a perfect place to start with a new coach, and have plenty of draft capital to get whatever QB we want in the draft. I’m expecting 10 wins or more and the playoffs next year. Either way its a win/win. Year 3 of the rebuild yields great results, or we are once again in a golden position for the draft with a roster full of young, talented players on rookie deals. A team ready for success. I just don’t understand the insistence on tearing things down to the ground again only part way through this process. Houston won a total of 11 games in three years to get here. We only had one season that bad and we’re talking about blowing it all up again. No wonder we haven’t won anything in almost 40 years.
Exciting didn’t necessarily mean good. He’s exciting because he can make some absolutely wild throws or extend plays with his legs. But then he’ll throw an incompletion on a routine pass on 3rd and 4.
This. I’ve watched damn near ever Bears game since 1980, and the thrill I get from the occasionally spectacular Fields play pales next to the thrill of seeing them win a playoff game. Which they haven’t done in 12 years.
I don’t see it as tearing things down or blowing it up. (Although I do wish we’d fired Flus.) It’s simply facing the reality that Fields’ potential upside over his one remaining cheap year is less than Caleb Williams’ potential upside over his four upcoming cheap years. The rest of the young core of the improving team isn’t going anywhere.
I wish I could back your scenario – trade the #1, run it back one more year with Fields and, if it doesn’t pan out, grab a QB with 2025’s ample draft capital. But unless the cards fall just right, that 2025 draft capital won’t include the #1 pick. If Fields doesn’t make the leap to being a top-tier QB, we’re truly starting over without nearly the opportunity that we have this year.
And yes, it will require a leap. To get from where he is now to where Love and Stroud already are will be a major leap in overall performance and consistency. And I frankly don’t think he can do it.
I would love to see Fields have the great wall of protection in front of him that Love has. What I saw in the final game against GB was a TEAM that was better than us in just about every area. Love had a clean pocket and vision in front of him on every drop back. Fields almost never got that. If we switched QBs in that game, and Love had to play under fire on every play like Fields. GB would still have won with Justin behind center. Love would have struggled. Look at how Jalen Hurts looked against that Tampa blitz. He looked just like Justin running for his life immediately after the snap trying to make miracle throws because that’s all he could do in that situation. Winning a playoff game involves the entire team. This idea that the QB is the only thing that matters when it comes to winning is ridiculous. Jameis Winston was supposed to be a great QB taken at number 1. How did that work out? Trevor Lawrence was supposed to be a generational talent, how is he looking now. His numbers are not very different than Fields. Yet there is zero talk that Jacksonville should dump him. There are no guarantees in this. There is no sure thing. I’m going to trust Poles on this. If he rolls another year with Justin, then lets go get it. If he drafts Caleb and trades Fields, I will still root for him and the Bears. I will also probably root for Justin wherever he goes. At the end of the day, none of this conversation is going to even make it in front of Poles to read, and he certainly wouldn’t be making his decision based on anything anyone has said here. It’s obvious people have very strong feelings about this situation, and it’s also obvious that it is anything but clear cut. This helps us. If we don’t know what Poles will do, then other teams don’t either. I expect this to be the case until much closer to the draft.
It wasn’t that in the last week against the Packers. Jenkins has owned up to the fact that it was his worst game. The revolving center was disastrous. The middle of our line was a porous as a sieve. You put Jordan Love in that situation and tell me he has just as good a game as he did behind his impenetrable forcefield of a line.
It’s not just about one game. Love’s stats over the last half of the season are far superior to any stats Fields has put together over any similar stretch. (Stroud’s stats this season were better than any Bears QB has ever put together.) There may be any number of reasons why their performances have been better, but there’s no reason to think things are now suddenly going to break Fields’ way next year. The reasons don’t matter. It may not be all Fields’ fault, but this is who Fields is now, and the available evidence points to this being who he always will be.
Same here. Though I’ll probably beef either way.
Me too. I like him. He deserved better than what he got here in his first three years.
