Can Fields pick up where he left off in Pittsburgh?
Fate of entire football operation could be at stake
When the Bears reach the end of the season, Chairman George McCaskey and those he entrusts for their opinion likely will put a greater emphasis on the second half of the season than anything else.
If that’s the case, it would create an intriguing eight-game stretch for coach Matt Nagy and general manager Ryan Pace as you wonder what in the eyes of McCaskey will constitute as “progress” for a team coming off consecutive 8-8 seasons and a wild-card playoff berth a year ago while playing a rookie quarterback in Justin Fields, who is on pace to start 15 games.
There is a lot to process from the first nine games, especially coming off a 29-27 road loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers in which the Bears unlocked their downfield passing game in an impressive secondhalf rally. If it was an awakening for Fields and the skill-position players, combined with better protection from the offensive line, it bodes well for all involved with the team seeking to snap a four-game losing streak.
If Fields and the passing game discovered their identity against the Steelers with the quarterback making accurate throws to the third level, involving wide receivers Darnell Mooney and Allen Robinson and tight ends Cole Kmet and Jimmy Graham, the latter of whom had been declared missing, the Bears will be considerably better equipped to challenge in the next two months.
Fields has averaged at least 10 air yards per passing attempt in three of the last four games and is averaging 7.15 yards per carry in that span. Nagy and offensive coordinator Bill Lazor have seemingly reached a point at which things are beginning to click, and sometimes when they don’t, Fields still finds a way to keep drives alive with off-schedule plays.
One impressive thing: Fields, with the exception of the disastrous road loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers when he had five turnovers, has done an especially good job of taking care of the football. It’s one thing when a rookie does that because he’s playing conservatively, but Fields has been challenging narrow windows downfield without crippling the team with a spate of turnovers.
Fields is doing a good job of expressing to the coaching staff what is working for him, and through trial and error, the Bears are learning what works better for him.
“We do feel like we are growing,” Nagy said. “Justin is getting better. But you’ve got to keep that going, and every week it seems like whether it’s (new) scheme, personnel obviously for everybody — and then we’ve got to be able to adapt to all of that.”
If the Bears (3-6) cannot pick up where they left off at Heinz Field, it could be viewed as an aberration for a struggling offense that has found momentum positively fleeting. That would be problematic from the standpoint the future of those with jobs on the line at Halas Hall is intertwined with success on the field and the development of Fields.
Nagy has struggled coming out of the bye since he took over as head coach in 2018. The Bears are 0-3 after their bye week under him — 0-7 over dating to Marc Trestman’s second season — and the Bears are 0-6 in the two games following the bye over the last three years. That’s unconnected to this season but also is an unsettling trend. The Ravens are 11-3 after the bye under John Harbaugh and has had 10 days to plan for the Bears since a disappointing 22-10 to the Miami
Dolphins.
“I do know from where I came from, (Kansas City Chiefs coach Andy Reid) has a pretty good record (post-bye),” Nagy said. “I tried to follow that early on in my career and it did not work. Not that you have to change. Some of it, too, is based off where you’re at as a team.”
The Bears are nearing a crossroad for Nagy and a coaching staff that is hopeful extra time to self-scout will prove beneficial. The Bears found a way to rally to a .500 finish in 2020 and backed into the playoffs as the No. 7 seed.
The development of Fields adds a layer to consider this season. The Bears knew entering last season — after declining the fifth-year option for Mitch Trubisky — they were almost certainly headed in a different direction at the position.
Now they have a player who perhaps finally can stabilize the quarterback spot, and Fields’ development is arguably as important as wins and losses. But winning matters, even while developing a young quarterback, and the Bears enter this game stuck in another familiar rut.
“OK, bye week, we’ve got to think about it even more,” Nagy said. “Guess what? We had a bye week last year too. We lost six games in a row with a bye week stuck in between. The only way to get back to it is to say, ‘OK, why is this going on?’ It’s no one’s fault other than everybody’s. Now we pick the pieces up and we get a chance to play a great football team that’s really well-coached, at home, and what are we going to do about it?”
It will be easy to assign fault if the Bears are incapable of using the rally against the Steelers as a launching point. Credit will be just as easy to distribute if they can break through in the final eight games and resemble the kind of offense everyone is waiting to see.
It’s all just another reason why the stretch run will matter most to McCaskey.