These Justin Fields comments should have Chicago Bears fans hopeful

Chicago Bears quarterback Justin Fields has struggled out of the gate to begin the 2023-2024 regular season and that has led many to wonder if the team’s coaching staff has broken him.

In his weekly press conference with reporters, Fields appeared to have acknowledged what the consensus has been when watching him play this season: he is thinking too much.

When Fields had the stretch of games last season after Week 5 where he appeared to be on the verge of superstardom, the Bears’ quarterback appeared to be playing off first instincts.

For the final four games of last season and the first two games of this season, it appeared that Fields had lost those instincts and reverted back to the script that offensive coordinator Luke Getsy tried to establish at the beginning of the season.

It is a script that does not fit Fields and the third-year quarterback appeared to have admitted that in a response on Wednesday.

This may be the first sense of tension between Fields and Getsy.

What is clear is that there has been a regression for Fields from where he currently is as a passing quarterback to where he was during his rookie season. It’s entirely possible that Fields was so preoccupied with being the type of quarterback that fit Getsy’s scheme as opposed to being the quarterback that he was during the middle portions of last season when he was playing off his initial instincts.

This is gut-check time for Fields.

For the first time since the Bears selected Fields in the first round of the 2021 draft, there are legitimate questions as to whether or not he is the answer for the team at the quarterback position.

Before Bears fans have that answer, Fields appears to be determined to prove that he can be the answer by playing the quarterback position his way instead of the flawed approach we have seen for the first two games of this season.