Keep Justin Fields, or draft somebody with a projected top-2 pick. Those seem to be the two options on the table for GM Ryan Poles as the Chicago Bears look towards 2024. Fans are split on the idea. Some believe Fields deserves another year. Others have seen enough and think it's time to hit the reset button. It comes down to what Poles thinks. Rumors have persisted for weeks that he is leaning towards the draft option, especially if the Bears end up with the #1 overall pick. However, nothing definitive has come out yet.
Here is where it gets interesting. Jay Glazer of Fox Sports is one of the most accurate national insiders in the NFL. When he states something, the information is rarely wrong. He was asked on NFL On Fox about who the Bears quarterback will be next year. Glazer stated that the Bears haven't made a decision yet. They are still evaluating Fields. Yet Glazer balked when pressed about the idea that all Fields has to do is put up good numbers to save himself. He stated that alone won't be enough. The Bears want to see if he can win some games, too.
Justin Fields is (and should be) being judged by wins.
Yes, it's a commonly debated topic. Wins are not a quarterback stat. A better way to put it is it's not solely on the quarterback. That said, it is the most important position in sports. Teams tend to win more games when the person playing it performs well. Fields has seven victories in his career, stretching across 35 starts. Some of that is because the team around him wasn't great. Another part might be that he committed multiple turnovers in eight of those games and posted a sub-90 passer rating in 22 of them.
At some point, the excuses need to stop. Justin Fields lost six games this season. Responsibility for five of them can be traced directly back to him playing poorly or making a huge mistake.
- An INT and a fumble vs. Green Bay
- The pick-six vs. Tampa Bay
- 99 passing yards vs. Kansas City
- The lost fumble for a TD vs. Denver
- The INT vs. Minnesota that led to a TD drive
This doesn't even count the two brutal 4th quarter fumbles he had in the rematch against the Vikings last month. So yeah, the Bears are perfectly justified to include wins in Fields' evaluation since he's had such a drastic impact in many of them this season.
