The Bears plan to start Justin Fields at quarterback Sunday against the Lions, coach Matt Eberflus said Wednesday. He was a full participant in Wednesday’s practice.
Fields dislocated his right thumb after trying to throw away the ball while being sacked by the Vikings’ Danielle Hunter on Oct. 15. He returned to practice, albeit on a limited basis, on Nov. 3, two days before the Bears’ loss to the Saints. He was limited during the Bears’ short run-up to their “Thursday Night Football” win against the Panthers but was ruled out a day before the game.
Fields has seven weeks left to show the Bears whether or not he can be their franchise quarterback moving forward. If the answer is the latter — he needs to make up a lot of ground for it to be anything else — the Bears figure to draft a quarterback this spring. They have the Panthers’ first-round pick, which would be No. 1 overall were the season to end today, as well as their own.
“I think seven weeks is enough time to show consistency and being the high performer that we expect him to be,” Eberflus said. “I know he’s had some good performances along this year, certainly the last few have been solid. We expect consistency out of all our positions.”
Fields’ 91.6 passer rating ranks 14th in the NFL. His season has been a rollercoaster, though, with his disappointing start obscured, statistically, by standout performances against the Commanders and the Broncos. He threw eight touchdowns in those two games; his 11 this season rank 16th in the NFL.
Tyson Bagent, the Bears’ undrafted rookie, went 2-2 in Fields’ place as the starter. Eberflus praised Fields’ helpfulness during the past month.
“I think that was very beneficial for Tyson to have that support,” he said. “Because you can feel it, you can feel support, you can feel him being genuine about that support and really helpful and he was great that way. He’s always been a great teammate, always been one of the hardest workers. He was engaged in all those gameplans to be helpful and to be supportive.”
