Justin Fields made an impressive debut in the Bears’ preseason opener, which left many clamoring for Matt Nagy to rethink his stance to ride with Andy Dalton as his predetermined starter for Week 1.
Nagy was impressed by his rookie quarterback’s performance, but he reiterated his stance about Dalton being the No. 1 guy right now. Which isn’t surprising given the plan Nagy has vowed to follow, which includes bringing Fields along slowly until he’s ready. But more impressive outings will certainly put the pressure on Nagy to decide if he’s ready earlier than expected.
While Fields was playing against second and third-string defenses, he was also playing with second and third stringers — and making them look good in the process. Which isn’t anything surprising, given he’s been doing that all training camp, making names like Jesse James, Rodney Adams and Jon’Vea Johnson relevant among post-practice conversation.
One thing that was made blatantly clear following Fields’ dazzling debut is that the future Bears starter needs reps with the first-team offense.
“I think that that’s real,” he said when asked the value of getting Fields reps with the starters. “I think you need to look into that, you need to be able to see, OK, not only so much to see that within the players, because he gets some of that in practice right now, he’s getting some of that. But also it would be good to see what he does versus the first-team defense. When you combine both of those together, that’s again kind of the evaluation process.
“There’s zero scheming going on right now in the preseason, zero. There’s not a lot of tape watched. There’s plays that are called to see if people can win 1-on-1s. Can they or can’t they? That’s that balance of trying to figure that out. We want to see the strength of these players when they’re playing. So, yes, I’d say a little bit of that with his own players and also who he’s playing against.”
For Fields, who is expected to see the starting lineup at some point his rookie season, seeing mostly reps with the second-team offense skill players, who likely won’t make the 53-man roster, won’t help him in building chemistry with guys like Allen Robinson, Darnell Mooney and Cole Kmet.
The best way to evaluate Fields is during a game, so we’ll see if Fields gets some reps with the first-team offense against the Bills’ first-team defense during Saturday’s game, which will give us a better idea of where he’s at.
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