It’s still not clear where Justin Fields will be playing next season.
Kamil Krzaczynski/AP
“You give him God-awful coaching and then support him with very little help around him, and then you see the fall off of the cliff. So for everyone that says drafting a quarterback is a crapshoot, that’s because you draft the quarterback and put them in situations where they have very little chance to have consistent success in the hardest position in all of sports.” — Dan Orlovsky on ESPN’s “Get Up”
So this is what a backfired plan looks like? When the “going to do right” by someone is removed from the beholder’s control. Intentions were good, future actuality — different. Like they say: Man plans, NFL laughs.
The trade market on Justin Fields dried faster than coaching jobs did for Bill Belichick. Making anything that general manager Ryan Poles and the Bears primitively had in mind with moving him and getting equitable market share in return as impossible as Jimmy Kimmel getting through the Oscars without mentioning Donald Trump. The plan was not to trade a promising, slightly above-average starting quarterback to be the best backup quarterback in the NFL for another team. But here we are. Accept the key card.
The thing about Orlovsky’s quote is that he wasn’t even discussing Fields. He was talking about whole ‘other QB on whole ‘other team. But, damn, how those words, that philosophy, that reality applies to this current situation for the Bears. As Sports Illustrated noted: “The Bears’ return on the trade (for Fields) would be the issue. It’s not going to be good any way you slice it.”
The market shifted on all questionable starting quarterbacks without anyone telling the Bears: On one end, Patriots’ publicly maligned quarterback Mac Jones, who entered the NFL with Fields in 2021 and actually has a Pro Bowl appearance on his resume, was just traded to Jacksonville to play backup to Trevor Lawrence in return for a sixth-round pick. On the other end of this volatile spectrum, Sam Howell, the Commanders’ primary starting QB last season, along with fourth- and sixth-round picks in this year’s draft, got traded to the Seahawks for third- and fifth-round picks. He was basically moved for two individual single-round upgrades, neither in the first two rounds. Nothing close to a true increased value in return.
And just to keep the comps fair and prove that this value depreciation in promise-not-yet-fulfilled-because-I’m-still-on-my-rookie-contract-as-an-NFL-quarterback is really nothing too new: Trey Lance, another of Fields’ colleagues from the 2021 draft, who was selected ahead of Fields in the first-round, was traded last year from the 49ers to the Cowboys to back up Dak Prescott. The return for the 49ers’ No. 3 overall draft pick investment? A fourth-rounder.
None of this was expected when those teams drafted for those players and put them in starting positions.
In a week when Poles acquired three Pro Bowl players at three needed positions (running back D’Andre Swift from the Eagles, safety Kevin Byard from the Titans and wide receiver Keenan Allen from the Chargers), the disappearing act of the league’s need and interest in Fields had to be an “Oh —, what just happened?” awakening. Were Poles’ impulses wrong? Not completely. Could he have played it differently? Not really. Because it is the uncertainty surrounding Fields’ mediocrity/greatness that’s hurt his trade value more than anything. And the timing of his single year contract re-up hasn’t helped at all.
The true ugliness of a plan is that it can backfire even when you do nothing wrong. Plans sometimes hate back like that.
Sub-zero return on an investment. A no-win situation but for only the chosen few. That’s the NFL universe the Bears walked into once the NFL Combine ended and the legal tampering window opened. Is a 2026 conditional pick on the table somewhere? Anywhere? That may be, looking at this ever-shifting landscape, the best that is going to find its way to Halas’ halls in any conversation concerning Fields immediate future outside of Chicago. Damn shame. Not saying there’s anything the Bears could have done to avoid this from being their new reality, but the situation would have damn sure been better had they temperature-checked ahead of now.
It’s all boiled to this point of a modern era low-risk/lower-return gamble. And I write all this to say that with Fields the Bears may now have to settle on taking two “L’s”: One for losing him and another for what is going to amount to them giving him away.