Justin Fields is a beat-up guy right now. He endured another pounding against the Atlanta Falcons, ending the afternoon of another close loss with what appeared to be a left shoulder injury. Now it’s inevitable that the Chicago Bears quarterback will take hits with how often he runs. However, several of the hits he’s endured this year have come with a dirty edge to them. Several times he’s given himself up on a slide and seen a defender crack him late. Every single time the referees refused to throw a flag. It happened again on the final drive against the Atlanta Falcons. Jaquan Brisker is tired of it.
The rookie safety is afraid to speak his mind when the situations call for it. At the risk of getting fined, he spoke out against the refs and their refusal to protect Fields. What makes it worse if they haven’t called it fair. While the Bears QB gets killed, other quarterbacks get roughing calls for highly questionable contact. It happened with Jared Goff last week and again with Marcus Mariota on Sunday. Brisker isn’t alone. Other teammates feel the same way. Even Fields himself admitted he thought Atlanta got away with some late shots.
“Especially, the league, if that was different quarterback, they would be throwing hella flags. A lot of flags. I feel like the league has to look at that. It’s crazy how many times he gets hit in the head every single game, but he still gets up. Gets hit out of bounds, late, or near the white.
“If that was Tom Brady, Jared Goff, or anybody like that, they throwing flags immediately. Just as you seen today. They threw a flag to Mariota, and he tripped over himself. I feel like they got to respect Justin some more and look at him as a quarterback because, obviously, there you should be more flags. He’s getting targeted every single game and none of them are being thrown.”
Jaquan Brisker knows how vital Fields is to the future.
The quarterback is the only reason Chicago has been in any of their games most of the year. The defense has allowed 27 or more points in four consecutive games. Yet the Bears only lost three of those games by three points or fewer because Fields put up points. The last thing Chicago needs is for him to get hurt. He must be protected. The NFL has typically been good about using the rules to guard quarterbacks against excessive contact. That hasn’t been the case with Fields. Too many times, some obvious penalties have gone uncalled.
Jaquan Brisker is right. Somebody needed to say something publicly about the refs. They must be held accountable. The NFL may not like that. He doesn’t care. Rookie or not, he’s trying to protect his teammate and the best possibility he’ll have of winning a championship in the future. It will be interesting to see how the Bears handle Fields next week. He may push to play regardless of his health being less than 100%, but it might be in the team’s best interests to give him a week off.
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This is such a big deal. Men are getting hurt and seasons are being changed. There is something going on. Maybe someone in the media can document all these obvious bad calls and no calls. This is not some whining, nitpicking sour grapes. This really is happening, especially to Fields. In general, refereeing is difficult, especially in a sport so fast and complicated. The league needs to fix this with more refs on the field and/or in the sky box and maybe some tech like sensors in the ball for accurate firs downs and touchdowns. And teams should be able… Read more »
Ralph Law STFU!
Eberflus is too chicken-doo-doo to speak up regarding the officials. He can-t even call out his own coaching shortcomings.
GBakes you say: “David, Mahomes is biracial, he’s blacuasion. Once a quarterback becomes a runner, QB protections no longer apply, black, white, or brown!”
Then I say to you why bother with a rule book? The same rules apply whether the QB is running or passing. The rule book is a completely worthless piece of trash if applied by your logic or lack thereof.
The Coach should be saying it. He should be banging on about it, in every single interview.
His players are putting their lives on the line, they should absolutely know that he has their back.
The more he makes it into a massive issue to more pressure it puts on the refs to officiate properly and evenly.
Right now who outside Bears fans knows we are getting stitched up so badly by the Zebbras?