Chicago Bears News: Justin Fields could play on Thanksgiving

Sunday afternoon, the Chicago Bears dropped to 3-7 after an ugly loss to the Baltimore Ravens.

In what should have been an intriguing matchup between two young, athletic quarterbacks, the Ravens were without Lamar Jackson due to illness. Instead, it was former undrafted quarterback Tyler Huntley who got the start in Jackson’s place.

As for Justin Fields, the rookie quarterback left the game and did not return due to a rib injury. His spleen is reportedly also being evaluated.

Andy Dalton took Fields’ place, but the Bears offense couldn’t muster up more than 13 points all afternoon. After the game, the main question was whether or not Fields’ injury was serious.

Sunday night, the Chicago Bears received positive news on Justin Fields’ rib injury.

Initially, some wondered if Fields indeed suffered cracked ribs. If that was the case, it would be highly unlikely we see Fields on Thanksgiving against the Detroit Lions. Yet, according to Ian Rapoport’s source, we might just get to see him after all.

Bruised ribs are a much different scenario than cracked. Very rarely does a player choose to play through cracked ribs, although Drew Brees did just that last year when he played with multiple.

Fields was just 4-for-11 for 79 yards passing before he left the game. Head coach Matt Nagy and offensive coordinator Bill Lazor had a hard time drawing up a successful game plan against a defense which was without a handful of players due to injury. In fact, it was abysmal.

It took extraordinary effort from Darnell Mooney on Dalton’s second pass of the afternoon to get the ball into the end zone. Mooney’s 60-yard screen, catch and run was a thing of beauty — however, Dalton hardly had anything to do with it.

This is Chicago, though, so we will absolutely have, at the very least, a mini quarterback controversy this week.

Following the game, Nagy wouldn’t name a starting quarterback if one or the other were hypothetically healthy.

Obviously.

Still, should Fields get cleared to play, one has to believe Nagy cannot afford to go backwards to Dalton. This season is clearly about Fields, now, and if Nagy’s job wasn’t already nearly gone, it would be cemented as lost if he turned back to Dalton.

For now, we wait for additional updates to the Bears rookie signal caller and can rest a little easier knowing he avoided cracks in those ribs.