CHICAGO’S FOOLISHNESS — JUSTIN FIELDS — TURNS INTO A MUCH BETTER FUTURE
The city’s odd fixation with Fields ended Saturday, when he was traded to Pittsburgh for a sixth-round draft pick and finally lets the Bears take an obvious gamble with the explosive Caleb Williams
So ends the obsession, the peculiar devotion to a decidedly uninspired athlete — Chicago’s absurd love affair with Justin Fields. It’s a large sports town but also very dense, a polite word for stupid. The fans were preoccupied. A bad media crew was infatuated, writing countless columns that meant nothing. From Bob Avellini to Peter Tom Willis to Moses Moreno to Mitch Trubisky to me — I threw a pass at camp — no player ever represented a region’s illiteracy about the quarterback position.
A writer, who shouldn’t be there, once adoringly compared his name to “Soldier Fields.” A writer also said Fields is “my quarterback.” Jay Cutler, who ranks as the best of the worst beyond the Sid Luckman years, went on national TV and said the Bears should protect Fields and trade down the No. 1 overall choice for the second straight season, which cost them the selection of C.J. Stroud.
“What I think they should do is trade down, get some more guys on that team to help out Justin, and see what happens,” Cutler said. “Because let’s plug in Caleb Williams on that team. What happens?”
Well, that colossal pick-six led to what should have happened last year, when Stroud would have given the Bears their best quarterback ever. General manager Ryan Poles was left Saturday to trade Fields to the only team desiring him, the Pittsburgh Steelers, who only relinquished a conditional sixth-round draft pick in 2025. Only if he plays 51 percent of the snaps this season will the pick turn into a fourth-rounder, which probably won’t happen because the Steelers have installed Russell Wilson as the starter. Mike Tomlin acquired Fields to let him learn from Wilson, which makes us wonder again why the Bears — a charter franchise in the NFL since 1920 — have used him as the regular for multiple seasons.
Of course, when they trade him, the city was drunk on St. Patrick’s weekend.
What it means, thankfully: The Bears are not keeping Fields, which would have been absolute lunacy, and will draft Williams with the top choice. Now, it’s possible he’ll grow leery of Poles and coach Matt Eberflus and realize he can’t win a division with Detroit and Green Bay. He might tell reporters that Lincoln Riley will take the coaching gig. Or, he might demand a trade. He might hate snow, too. There is no preventing the Bears from always being the Bears and blowing the Caleb Solution.
But at least the rest of us — including me, who columnized about them missing the playoffs 13 times in 17 years — don’t have to read the Fields mish-mash. This way he has a chance to study Wilson, if Wilson can learn from his own errors, and make impact in a serious football town. The best option is a one-way plane fare, assuming he’ll avoid Primanti Bros. and Pirates games.
“Can’t say thank you enough to the city of Chicago for taking me in and embracing me,” Fields wrote Saturday on X. “Thank you to the entire Bears organization and ownership for allowing me the opportunity to be part of such a historic franchise. But most of all thank you to my all my brothers I played with. You all were the reason I attacked each day the way I did. I can’t thank you all enough for what y’all have meant to me over the last 3 years through the ups and downs. I wish each one of you nothing but success. Ready for this next chapter!”
Personally, as a favor to the franchise, I will be happy to pick up Poles, Eberflus and Bears employees when they arrive in Los Angeles this week for Williams’ pro day. They could get lost, you know, and miss the proceedings while misguided in Boyle Heights. Then they move on to J.J. McCarthy’s pro day Friday at Michigan and events from Jayden Daniels and Drake Maye the following week. But anyone who compares Williams to Bryce Young and Daniels to Stroud — I’ve been hearing that trickeroo — hasn’t watched college football lately. Williams and the Bears might never get along, I realize. But they must take him nonetheless so he can throw to DJ Moore, Keenan Allen, Cole Kmet and a possible receiver with the ninth pick — Rome Odunze — and hand off the ball to D’Andre Swift.
They might not win. But they will be worth watching, which means I don’t have to bring Sunday’s New York Times to the press box and pass out sections. Those were the Dave Krieg years. The scene is about to improve dramatically.
“That starts with us being able to teach it in a good and efficient manner where they understand it ... because each guy's gonna have a different skill set,” offensive coordinator Shane Waldron said. “The players really take ownership and control.”
That would be Caleb.
“I look at the guys that can operate third down, two-minute and the end of the game situations,” Eberflus said. “To me that's a separator. And then you look at toughness. Toughness for a quarterback really is about the mental toughness to be able to stand in the pocket and deliver the ball, and also to have the discernment to be able to move out of the pocket and create when it's necessary. They come in all different shapes and sizes.”
That would be Williams.
And if the Bears screw up again and take McCarthy, because he grew up in La Grange Park, let Caleb make the Hall of Fame and share a stage with Stroud. They can watch, as they always do.
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.