The Bears don’t plan to put quarterback Justin Fields on injured reserve and don’t anticipate him to need surgery to fix his dislocated thumb, coach Matt Eberflus said Friday.
“We are not on that path right now,’ Eberflus said.
That opens the door for the Bears quarterback to return to game action in weeks and not months.
Fields’ grip strength is getting better and he’s feeling better, Eberflus said, though it’s not strong enough for him to throw a football. Fields won’t play Sunday, and won’t throw a football on the field hours before the game, either.
They’ll evaluate him again Monday.
“Hopefully he’ll start gripping a football and then progressing from there, start throwing a little bit,” he said. “And we’ll see where it goes.”
They believe the swelling in his thumb will have further subsided by Monday.
“The grip strength is really where it is, the functionality of it,” Eberflus said. “If we see more of that — and it’s obviously trending in the right direction, that’s what it’s done this week. That’s where it’s looking good.”
If Fields stops making progress, the Bears could reverse course. But Eberflus said he’s “trending in the right direction.”
“The mobility’s getting better,” he said. “The swelling went down. The grip strength is better.”
Fields was injured when he was sacked during the Bears’ first possession of the third quarter Sunday against the Vikings. X-rays were negative but an MRI confirmed the dislocation, which comes with tearing the muscles that surround the base of the thumb.
Fields was spotted earlier this week with a small purple brace on his thumb. He hasn’t been on the sideline during the portions of practice open to the media.
Undrafted rookie Tyson Bagent will start in his place, with veteran Nathan Peterman serving as the team’s second-stringer. The Bears signed quarterback Trace McSorley to the practice squad earlier this week.
A trip to injured reserve would have cost Fields at least four games, per league rules.
