Things have already reached a crisis point for the Chicago Bears, and they haven’t even completed the first month of their season. They sit at 0-3 with their playoff aspirations on life support. Kansas City abused them 41-10 in a game that was even worse than the final score looked. Nothing is going right for them. Few players feel this reality more than Justin Fields. If people cooked up a worst-case scenario for the young quarterback to start this year, it has come to pass. He’s completing less than 60% of his passes with three touchdowns and four interceptions.
The pressure is getting to him. Anybody listening to Fields talk can hear it. He’s calling out the coaches and has no clear answers for why he and the offense are struggling. One thing is clear. Rumblings indicate patience with him inside Halas Hall is wearing down. There is every reason to believe the upcoming game on Sunday against the Denver Broncos will be his last stand.
If he can put together even an adequate performance against them, it will be a point of no return. Keep this in mind. Jimmy Garoppolo, Sam Howell, and Tua Tagovailoa each had passer ratings of 107 or higher against the Broncos’ defense in the first three weeks. Tua had only three incompletions with four touchdowns. This defense surrendered 70 points last Sunday. There are no excuses for Fields not to play well.
Justin Fields will have every advantage he can hope for.
It will be at home, so crowd noise won’t be a problem. Denver’s pass rush is rough, notching only four sacks this season. Worst of all is their run defense. It’s dead last in the NFL. It feeds right into the Bears’ perceived strengths as an offense. This offensive system is even similar to the one Miami utilized to eviscerate them last week. Denver is not a good football team. This is an opponent the Bears should be able to beat. It’s also one that Fields has no excuse to struggle against.
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Then again, that has already been said before. Tampa Bay was picked apart by Kirk Cousins and Jalen Hurts with relative ease. Yet Justin Fields found little success against them. He was supposed to slice up the Atlanta Falcons last year. They held him in check as well. As bad as the Broncos are, they have enough tape to realize Fields isn’t somebody to be feared or even respected. If ever there was a time to change the narrative, it’s now because there likely won’t be another if Fields flops.
Honestly, watch the Chase Daniels film breakdown. I don’t think its all JF1, I think its poor play scheme and blocking scheme that kills this team. Coaching is disastrous.
I’ve done a 180 on Fields. I respect his guts and work ethic. But he can’t read a defense. I’m not even sure he read his 1 and 2 options. It’s time to move on.
After reading the first paragraph, I just couldn’t read any more before breaking out my best Jim Mora:
“Playoffs?! What are you talking playoffs?! We’re just trying to win a game.”
Tonkaman —
Imagine Lambert’s comment are being directed at Mitch Trubisky– then you won’t feel as offended.
Hey I’m the last person who should throw a stone about using inappropriate language when upset about a sporting event, but am I the only person who thinks it is overly inappropriate in a column? This makes the author sound like a common drunken fan going off after his team’s loss; what I expect from these columns is calm analysis and facts I hadn’t known prior to reading the column. The “f-bombs” and “a-hole” comments are distracting and only serve to make the reader take the column less seriously since the author cannot write in a professional manner.