Let’s try to frame the Justin Fields debate another way and see if we can bring a few more lost souls over to the side that says the Bears have to draft a quarterback with the No. 1 overall pick.
Fields vs. Jordan Love for the next 10 years — happy with the idea of that, Bears fans?
If you watched the Packers’ 17-9 victory over the Bears on Sunday, you know it’s impossible to make the argument that Fields is anywhere close to Love as a passer. Let me rephrase that: It’s impossible to make that argument if you’re honest with yourself.
Honesty has been in short supply when it comes to a debate as emotional as the one Bears fans have had about Fields. But Love’s performance Sunday at Lambeau Field was everything a team would want from a quarterback in a pivotal game. He completed 27 of 32 passes for 316 yards and two touchdowns. What should have been a third TD was dropped in the end zone. It didn’t matter. The victory in the final regular-season game gave the Packers a spot in the playoffs. That’s what big-time quarterbacks do.
Fields was decent Sunday, which is to say he wasn’t nearly good enough. He was under constant pressure, thanks to a beat-up and overmatched line. But that’s not the point of our exercise here. It’s whether the Bears and Fields can compete with the Packers and Love year after year. Unless Fields can magically borrow some of Love’s field vision, the answer is no. Nice kid. Great runner. Not a good enough passer.
The Bears didn’t attempt a pass in the third quarter, and you can lay the blame for that on any of the usual suspects — offensive coordinator Luke Getsy, the offensive line or something else. The barometric pressure, maybe. Just know that the Bears chose to run the ball in a tight contest.
Fields has yet to be the reason the Bears have won a game down the stretch in his young career. That, too, has to go into the analysis of whether the team keeps him. Is that what you want in a quarterback? Is this someone you want to devote $40 million a year to? Honesty instead of excuses and rationalizations, please.
This was as close to a playoff game as Fields has had in his three seasons, and he didn’t do much, throwing for 148 yards and no touchdowns. In his first season as a starter, Love finished with 4,159 yards and 32 TDs. The Bears have never had a quarterback throw for 4,000/30. Never = ever.
They face the specter of Love in the NFC North for the next decade. If the idea is to win the division, then they have to respond. The right answer here depends on whether most talent evaluators are right about USC’s Caleb Williams or North Carolina’s Drake Maye, who could be the top two picks in the April draft.
If they are, then the Bears have to move on from Fields.
They need to go with a younger quarterback who will cost a lot less in the short term than an older quarterback who has yet to prove he can be great. A gamble, yes, but isn’t everything a gamble?
I have no earthly idea what general manager Ryan Poles will do about Fields. That’s how close to the vest he has played this. A part of me believes that whichever way the Bears go will be the wrong way. But no one outside of Halas Hall, or outside of Poles’ office, or possibly outside of Poles’ head, knows what the GM is thinking.
If he doesn’t see that Fields is miles behind Love, the franchise has even bigger problems than the lack of a franchise quarterback.
My guess is that Poles will keep head coach Matt Eberflus and dispose of Getsy. But, again, who knows? Even Fields says he has no clue what Poles will do about the quarterback position and the draft. After the game, he thanked Bears fans and the city of Chicago for supporting him “in case this is my last rodeo with y’all.’’
He did make his case for staying.
“I’m only getting better,’’ he said.
Just not better than the quarterback to the north.
