The anticipation was quenched yesterday when former Ohio State quarterback Justin Fields participated in his first practice at Chicago Bears rookie minicamp. All reports seem to be overwhelmingly positive from media members and onlookers.
But the guy that really matters is the one calling the shots, head coach Matt Nagy. And while he wasn’t at practice because of COVID-19 tracing, he was a very interested onlooker from home through remote video. He too, seemed impressed by what he saw from the rookie.
“I think that he had really good command of just going from play call in the headset, walking into the huddle, calling the play, everyone breaking at the same time and then having that first wide vision,” said Nagy. “His mechanics were really good. I thought he seemed super calm. A lot of times in these camps, things seem a thousand miles per hour and it didn’t seem that way from where I was.”
Fields is of course still learning the playbook, but that too seems to be going well. So much so that he felt comfortable enough to correct a wide receiver on an adjustment to a route he should have made based on the coverage.
“I thought it was pretty cool,” Nagy said, “that already on Day one, Justin was going over and in a coachable and teachable way was explaining to that player, ‘Hey, they changed rotation-wise. Next time that happens, you have to run this route instead of that route.’ Day one, that’s pretty good.”
Matt Nagy said there was a play today where there was an error on the route based on the coverage the defense gave the offense.
Nagy said after the play Justin Fields went straight to the player and had a conversation with him about what he saw.
(Via Bears FB Live)
— Daniel Greenberg (@ChiSportUpdates) May 14, 2021
We’ll continue to keep an eye on how Fields is progressing with the Bears, but for now, it seems to be going as we all expected here in Columbus; very well indeed.