Ike Taylor was a 4th round pick for the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2003. He ended up spending over a decade with the organization, helping them win two Super Bowls. In a rare occurrence, he never played a down for another franchise. The man bleeds black and gold. So if anybody were to have a bias opinion about what happened on Monday night between the Bears and Steelers, it’d be him. Yet he was more than ready to admit one undeniable fact. Chicago has themselves a franchise quarterback in Justin Fields.
Remember that Taylor played cornerback in the NFL. This was during a time when Steelers had to go through Peyton Manning and Tom Brady at their respective zeniths. He also played with another future Hall of Famer in Ben Roethlisberger. So the guy has a pretty good idea of what franchise quarterbacks are supposed to look like. From what he told the “Bleav in Steelers” podcast, that is exactly what the Bears have.
This is an unusual feeling for fans.
They’ve grown used to quarterbacks constantly disappointing them over the years. It has become an almost perverse tradition. A guy comes in with lots of hype, struggles, and is soon replaced by somebody else. Repeat. Justin Fields just seems different. Many of the throws he made in Pittsburgh weren’t common. They were of the variety that only a select few in the NFL can make. The fact he did it against a good defense on the road in just his seventh career start?
That bodes well for the future. He is improving rapidly. Doing so with questionable help around him. A coaching staff that seems incapable of engineering a cohesive scheme. An iffy offensive line and underachieving wide receivers. He is overcoming all of that to show steady progress. One can only imagine how good things can get once he has more help Are the Bears capable of providing it? That will be their next challenge.
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