With the 2022 NFL season officially entering its second half, conversations about the frontrunners for MVP have started to emerge with a flurry. Though the likes of Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen and a handful of others have dominated the discourse, ESPN’s Dan Orlovsky made a surprising suggestion for someone whose name could be worth mentioning in MVP talks: Bears quarterback Justin Fields.
In an appearance on Get Up Monday morning, Orlovsky lauded the recent performances churned out by Fields, saying that if he continues on this trajectory, he should be in the conversation for the league’s highest individual honor.
“I honestly believe Justin’s play is going to warrant him getting into [the MVP] conversation,” Orlovsky said. “Now, he is not going to win it with the way that Tua [Tagovailoa] is playing and Patrick [Mahomes] and all that stuff but he has been so remarkable over this last month that you sit there and say ‘That player, if he was on a team that was going to win more, he would be in the MVP conversation.’”
Though he quickly qualified his statement by naming Tagovailoa and Mahomes as the clear frontrunners–a notion he doubled down on by naming the pair of quarterbacks as the favorites again on First Take Monday–Orlovsky sounded bullish on Fields’ talent. That’s a sentiment that’s been backed up recently, as shown by the last two performances from the Chicago quarterback.
Coming off of a Week 9, four-touchdown performance where he set the regular-season record for rushing yards by a quarterback in a single game, Fields dazzled once again against the Lions on Sunday. He scored four times, twice through the air and twice on the ground, while racking up 167 passing yards and 147 rushing yards.
Unfortunately for Fields, and as Orlovsky pointed out, the Bears haven’t been able to convert the quarterback’s impressive showings to wins. Chicago lost to Miami 35–32 in Week 9 and to Detroit on Sunday, 31–30. The NFC North club is now 3–7 on the year.
While Fields may not end up being awarded by the league in part due to the team’s poor performance, the Bears will at least be able to leave 2022 behind knowing that they have a bright future behind center.
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For more Chicago Bears coverage, go to Bear Digest.
