The first Monday of the post-Justin Fields era is here and Bears fans are still coming to grips with it. I get it. Lost in the weekend haze was the Bears burying a trade of their former starting quarterback in a deal featuring an underwhelming return. And with the same team that got one over on them with the Chase Claypool deal.
Yeah, I’d still be trying to sort through the ridiculousness if I wasn’t sitting in the chair I’m currently occupying.
One thing I won’t be doing this week is re-sharing the RG3 tweet in which he insists that Caleb Williams should pull an Eli Manning and tell the Bears he refuses to play for them. At some point, as humans, we have to say “enough is enough” with online shenanigans that are thrown onto the timeline just so someone can get their rocks off. I get it. Rent is due at the end of the month and those blue checkmarks aren’t free anymore. And I’m not going to infringe on your right to speak pure silliness for the sake of paying your bills. But I am going to exercise my right to ignore it at the first sign of stupidity.
Also, this readership doesn’t need it. Bears fans have been put through the wringer by disingenuous folks who have gone out of their way to manipulate their fellow Bears fans for the sake of boosting their profile with engagement. They don’t deserve to be treated like fools this way for another 38 days off and I won’t be a part of it.
Also, also: The whole RG3 narrative is pure foolishness. How does it make sense logically to force yourself out of a situation where you’d be throwing to Keenan Allen and DJ Moore, protected by an offensive line led by three home-grown above-average players (Darnell Wright, Braxton Jones, Teven Jenkins) on rookie-scale contracts, a tight end (Cole Kmet) who is coming off his best season as a pro and entering his prime, and an offensive coordinator whose system you’d be comfortable with because of the similarities it shares with what you ran as a collegiate player.
The Bears finally have done right by a young quarterback. And you want to scoff at it? Highly unlikely in my book.
I thought Bears cornerback Jaylon Johnson had the best perspective about this saga (via BearsWire):
“Be wary of? I can’t say that. I feel like at the end of the day, we know the business that we’re in. So I feel like it wouldn’t be mature of us as a locker room not to rally together in spite of having Justin leave. I know what it would do to keep him here. I know how we would feel with him here, but I feel like at the end of the day, we’ll all have our opinions, our emotions, but as far as the locker room staying together, I think we have the right guys in the locker room to keep everything together, to keep us together.
“And I mean, at the end of the day, we’re all here to win ballgames. So I don’t think it’s about necessarily our feelings or, ‘Oh, well, you did this.’ We’re all here to win games. So whoever Poles brings in, whoever the staff brings in to help us win games, that’s who we’re going to rock with.”
“At the end of the day, we’re all here to win ballgames” is a bar. Just win, baby. The rest will sort itself out.
The thing about Justin Fields is that he’ll be OK. They’re not blackballing him from the league. And he’ll get a chance as QB2 to fight his way back to the top of a depth chart. Plus, he’ll have supporters along the way. “I’ve always been a Justin Fields fan,” said new running back D’Andre Swift, via NBC Sports Chicago. “From Georgia to when he was in high school once I first found out about him. I feel like he hasn’t even touched the ceiling of who he can be. I’m excited to see him keep going.”
P.S.: Don’t miss Justin too much. The Bears host the Steelers (h/t Kevin Fishbain) in 2025.
Of note: Jon Greenberg (The Athletic) points out that this is the second time the Steelers have tried to rehabilitate an ex-Bears quarterback. I suppose it can’t go worse than the Mitchell Trubisky experience.
An interesting bit of spin from Sun-Times columnist Rick Morrissey, who writes the Bears are saying goodbye to settling for “good enough” and welcoming (with open arms) a roll of the dice with the hope that Super Bowl glory is the pay-off.
The state of the 2021 NFL Draft’s quarterback class is a complete and utter mess. And it goes beyond the five first-rounders. I hadn’t thought abut Kyle Trask, Kellen Mond, Davis Mills, Ian Book, and Sam Ehlinger in a long time. Based on their play, I’ll probably not think about any of those players again. (PFT)
When it comes to the Bears’ free agency exploits, I think Jeff Hughes (Da Bears Blog) nails it here: You’re obsessed with the nonsense that has come to be called “good process.” He’s concerned with only one process: his. I admire Ryan Poles’ gumption. He is going to build his team in his vision. Maybe we should take this as a reminder to live life on our terms and not someone else’s.
Double dipping with our friends at BN Blackhawks, who beat the Sharks on Sunday and had some prospect stars shining over the weekend.
This is what is on tap for the folks at BN Bulls this week:
NEWSLETTER
