Did the Chicago Bears break Justin Fields?

Chicago Bears quarterback Justin Fields delivered one of his worst games against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Fields completed 16 of 29 passes for 211 yards with a touchdown pass while he also ran for a score. He threw two interceptions including a defeat-clinching pick-six and fumbled the ball twice. Thankfully, they were not recovered by the Bucs.

Fields was also sacked six times. The offensive line did not play great, but a lot of those sacks were because Justin held onto the ball too long.

We are two games into the 2023 season and the data points are trending towards Justin Fields not taking a positive step as a passer.

Now there are legitimate concerns that Fields is not the answer to the franchise’s seven-decade-long problem at quarterback.

It makes you wonder that a franchise where quarterbacks go to die has broken another talented prospect.

Fields has started 29 games in his NFL career. At this point, he is still just a flash of potential. He had an excellent start to the game and then regressed.

Fields was taking sacks and missing open receivers through the second and third quarters.

He bounced back in the fourth to lead the team down the field for a touchdown drive to pull the Chicago Bears within three. Fields made a beautiful pass to Chase Claypool to get that score.

The pick-six crushed any hope of Fields leading the team down for a game-winning score. Fields is now 5-22 as a starter.

We are still talking about the same issues he had at this point last season. He is not seeing the field well. He is very inconsistent going through his progression. He is holding onto the ball too long and it is causing him to take unnecessary sacks.

The only improvement he has shown in the passing game is he can hit his check down. The game plan called for getting the ball down the field more, so we were not going to see a ton of throwing the ball underneath.

There was even a play where Fields missed two open receivers and his checkdown. The end result was him looking tentative, taking a sack, and regression from last week where he played poorly.

He is at a point in his career where he should at least be seeing the field better and making better decisions. Instead, his processing and throwing motion looks slower. You want a quarterback that has had the game slow down for them. That means when the defense attacks, the QB1 is still calm under pressure and reading the field.

Instead, Fields is still shaky in the pocket.

A good portion of these struggles falls on Fields. On the other hand, the organization has contributed to his passing issues.

The offensive line has been bad the moment Fields came to the Chicago Bears. It has caused him to be jumpy in the pocket. He looks uncomfortable the moment the pocket starts to collapse.

The team hired a defensive-minded head coach in Matt Eberflus instead of a quarterback guru like Brian Daboll.

Offensive coordinator Luke Getsy’s play calling this season has been terrible. He will not run Fields even with defenses making adjustments for his dynamic ability to carry the ball. Justin ran for over 1,000 yards last year and he has had four plays designed for him to carry the ball.

You can be concerned about Fields running the ball being defended better. Getting hurt will always be a worry, but four designed runs is coaching malpractice.

Getsy called way too many screens last week against the Green Bay Packers. He called a disjointed game against Tampa after the first series.

The offense was in second-and-eight or more 11 times. A few of those can be attributed to Fields taking a sack or him fumbling. A lot of those first-down calls just could never get ahead of the chains.

There was a play where Cole Kmet and D.J. Moore were in the same spot on the field and it led to an incompletion. That means someone ran the wrong route.

Getsy is asking Fields to do things he is not capable of doing. Fields is trending toward being nothing more than an average quarterback when his talent screams MVP.

There is not a lot of confidence that Getsy will revert the game plan to run plays Fields can run well. Just like there is not a lot of confidence that the Chicago Bears organization can develop a quarterback.