After a choppy start, Justin Fields’ debut fuels the Bears’ excitement.
Rookie Fields’ debut only fuels excitement
The first big boost to Justin Fields mania didn’t arrive until the third quarter Saturday afternoon at Soldier Field.
The Bears rookie quarterback evaded Miami Dolphins linebacker Tyshun Render near the 15-yard line, sprinted to his left and then lowered his shoulder to plow into the end zone for an 8-yard touchdown run.
Bears fans who likely had been taking deep, calming breaths and reminding themselves it was only the preseason opener for most of the first half let loose with excitement.
Fields’ NFL preseason debut didn’t get off to a pretty start, but the firstround draft pick did enough by the time he left the game to keep the hype train rolling.
In about two quarters of work, Fields completed 14 of 20 passes for 142 yards and a 30-yard touchdown to Jesse James and rushed for 33 yards and a touchdown on five carries. Even if it was against Dolphins backups, it was enough to further the conversation about whether Fields is going to push Bears coaches to start him over veteran Andy Dalton early in the regular season.
Coach Matt Nagy no doubt was expecting the questions about such a scenario postgame.
“Everybody here is super excited about the way that he played today,” Nagy said. “We all want the same thing. We understand the buzz. We understand the excitement. That’s why we drafted him. But we want to make sure that we continue to go through this thing and we understand the process. This is one game … and now the beautiful thing is we get to get more practices in and get to see how he comes back next week against Buffalo.”
The Bears offense was playing without wide receivers Allen Robinson and Marquise Goodwin, and running back David Montgomery had one carry before leaving the game. Fields was throwing to mostly second stringers rather than Darnell Mooney, Jimmy Graham and Cole Kmet, though he did play several of his series behind the starting offensive line. Such absences didn’t help Fields early.
He had taken the field a quarter before his rushing touchdown to a roaring welcome from Bears fans, but the offense didn’t get a first down on his first three drives and didn’t reach the end zone in the first half.
A pair of false-start penalties from Javon Wims and Elijah Wilkinson contributed to the first drive stalling. Fields had three incomplete passes against solid Dolphins defense on the second drive. And on the third, Sam Mustipher fumbled, Fields threw a near interception and Fields fumbled out of bounds for another three-andout.
The Bears finally got past the firstdown marker with 27 seconds to play in the second quarter when Fields completed back-to-back 7-yard passes to Chris Lacy and Khalil Herbert. Fields had two more completions on the drive — a 15-yarder to Justin Hardy and an 8-yarder to James to set up Cairo Santos’ 53-yard field goal.
According to Nagy and teammates, Fields was the picture of calm, even through those early bumps.
“He’s a natural,” wide receiver Rodney Adams said. “He’s a leader. He commanded the huddle like he was supposed to and he came out there and made plays. That is what they brought him here for, and it showed.”
Fields said at no point did he have jitters and didn’t find the speed of the game too fast, even though he had to worry about taking an NFL hit for the first time.
“It was actually kind of slow to me to be honest,” he said. “I was expecting it to be a little bit faster. … Of course we have a great defense, so me going against them every day, it definitely slowed the game up a little bit for me. I felt comfortable out there. And I have room to grow so I’m going to try to get better each and every day.”
He set the tone coming out of halftime with a 17-yard pass to Riley Ridley to open a 77-yard touchdown drive. He also hit Adams with passes of 25 and 13 yards, while Herbert had a 16-yard run before Fields scrambled to the end zone to cut the Dolphins’ lead to 13-10.
By the time Fields fueled a 70-yard touchdown drive with a 21-yard scramble and the touchdown pass to a wideopen James, he brought back an energy back to Soldier Field that hasn’t been present in more than a year and a half, given that no fans were allowed in during the 2020 season.
And he captured the attention of viewers as prominent as LeBron James, who tweeted, “Justin Fields is so SPECIAL man!! Keep going Young (crown emoji)”
Fields said it was “an honor” to get a shoutout from James, whose poster used to hang on his bedroom wall. He noted it was the second time James had shouted him out after a tweet during the Ohio State game against Clemson.
“I’m definitely going to be keeping track of that,” Fields said.
Meanwhile, the rest of Bears nation is going to be keeping track of what Fields can do to unseat Dalton, who completed 2 of 4 passes for 18 yards in two three-and-out series Saturday.
With a little less than a month to go until the season opener, Nagy continues to preach worrying about the now, a message Fields apparently has taken to heart.
“When you look too far in the future, you start worrying about way too much stuff,” Fields said. “You start thinking too much in your head. (Former NFL quarterback) Alex Smith came and talked to the team and told us just to worry about to today and just to live. … Him coming off that injury, he was just telling us how grateful he was to get back on the field and play. He played every game like it was his last game, and that’s what I was doing all day.
“Today, last night, my mindset was going out there and no matter what happened, just play for today and just try to act like it was my last time on the field.”