In March, the Bears traded quarterback Justin Fields to the Pittsburgh Steelers in exchange for a conditional 2025 sixth-round pick. If Fields plays 51% of snaps this season, the pick could upgrade to a fourth-round selection. But recent reports from Pittsburgh suggest troubling news for Fields and the Bears. There’s been speculation that the Steelers might consider using Fields as a kick returner due to a new rule change for kickoffs this season. This development caused concern in both Pittsburgh and Chicago, albeit for different reasons. However, according to Jeff Hartman of the Steel Curtain Network, a source within the Steelers organization dismissed the idea of Fields returning kickoffs as “preposterous” and highly unlikely to happen.
“They went on to say it’s ‘complete f’ing horse crap.”
Justin Fields still has a chance to beat out Russell Wilson.
While there’s a high probability of Russell Wilson likely starting the season as QB1, Justin Fields could impress the Steelers coaching staff, making the QB1 decision a lot tougher. Even if Wilson starts, Fields might eventually get his chance due to Wilson’s poor performance or an unfortunate injury. For the Bears, the ideal scenario is if Fields wins the job or gets a chance early on during the season, as his opportunity to play over 51% of the snaps is only at quarterback — not as a kick returner.
@barry_mccockiner – I’ll give you my opinion on why Poles took the low offer from Pittsburgh, and the masses can downvote me me to their heart’s content: Poles still wasn’t sure that Caleb Williams would be happy to come here, and he was waiting for confirmation. In the meantime, more QB vacancies around the NFL were filled, and Fields’ value dropped a little more every time. But until he knew that Williams wouldn’t hold out, he could not trade Fields and leave himself with only Bagent at QB. Simply one of the infelicities one has to accept when they are… Read more »
@barry_mccockiner – I’m not sure anybody in Halas Hall was running down JF1. I think two things happened: 1) Poles wanted to build the team up before investing in a QB who’d already had a year of his rookie deal wasted by Pace/Nagy, and was still learning the QB skills he should have come into the NFL with. That’s Poles choice as GM, and I don’t fault him for deciding not to invest in Fields. It was a bad deal in many ways for both Poles and Fields. 2) Luke Getsy was a new OC, who was a terrible choice… Read more »
@Tred Today’s report on how Brad Childress blew Mitch Trubisky’s back out over a stair railing in 2019 makes me wonder who was up in Halas Hall last year defaming and disparaging Justin Fields to Luke Getsy. Fields was very productive during the first half of most games. It’s not like he just forgot how to play quarterback in the fourth quarters; the thing that changed was the plays Getsy called. Fields ran the plays he was told to run (he wasn’t given any rope to audible at the line, go into quick mode, etc.), and he fell apart during… Read more »
Most of you commenting on here are still pretending like the Pittsburgh offer was the best one. It wasn’t. There were other offers on the table (or about to be put there) that valued Fields higher, and Poles took the low-ball offer. This has been reported and established as factual.
I have my OPINIONS about why Poles took the lowest offer instead of the best one, but I’ll keep those to myself so as to not get downvoted into oblivion.
It’s sad. Some folks hate Fields so much they can’t even acknowledge he even has talent. But, he’s done what 99% of the public will never do – make it to one of the top pro sports leagues in the world. He’s making millions, and he nearly set the NFL QB season rushing record, and holds the single game record. In a system tailored to his skills, and not trying to force him to be a pocket passer, he very well could still be successful considering he’s only 25. A lot of people would be jealous of those accomplishments at… Read more »