Justin Fields partially blamed the Bears coaching staff for his robotic play so far this season

Justin Fields’ criticism of his coaches is reasonable but he’s not without blame.

To put it succinctly, Justin Fields has been awful to start his third NFL season. After the Chicago Bears added D.J. Moore to a seemingly promising skill position group, the 24-year-old was supposed to blossom into a consistent difference-making quarterback.

To be clear, Fields is making a difference, but not in the way anyone in Chicago had hoped. He’s one of pro football’s worst quarterbacks right now. He has, somehow, markedly regressed from a promising 2022, where he was one of the NFL’s most electric weapons. Everything remains concerning for him and the Bears.

It also doesn’t seem like it’ll get better for any party involved any time soon.

On Wednesday, Fields addressed perhaps why he’s been so atrocious through Chicago’s first eighth of 2023. In a pointed press conference, Fields didn’t offer standard cannon fodder answers about executing better, hitting the playbook harder, or believing in his teammates. Ironically, for a player developing a reputation for overthinking like a robot, Fields kind of took both the Bears’ coaching staff and himself to task for ruining a free-flow element to his game.

It was … quite different:

I’m still unsure what to make of a quarterback who seems pretty fed up and frustrated with an impossible situation.

The Bears did indeed rework Fields’ throwing mechanics this offseason, which we are seeing come to fruition with disastrous results. It’s almost as if asking Fields to tighten up his technique has caused him to short-circuit while attempting to play differently than he has for most of his career at Ohio State and in Chicago. Fields has a legitimate gripe about being bothered by what appears to be a coaching staff micromanaging him while diminishing the best aspects of his game. They’re practically asking him to be a different player — in a broken offense doing little to help him — and no one could possibly appreciate that.

At the same time, as Fields himself acknowledged, he is not without fault. He is alarmingly making the same mistakes he made as a rookie in 2021. He’s still not going through his progressions. He’s still passing up open receivers on the rare, well-designed Bears offensive plays. Everything he does, from his dropback to throwing motion, is done too slowly to give his offense a chance. Nothing is in rhythm. There’s simply no urgency to Fields’ approach, and you have to wonder how much of that problem comes from him overthinking everything.

Never mind that what the Bears’ coaches are asking of Fields from a macro level is entirely reasonable. Opposing defenses have taken away Fields’ game-breaking ability to run. There are pleas from fans and outside observers to give Fields more designed runs, but the book is out on him for now. His legs are only an advantage when teams respect the passing game. No one is biting on those fakes and quarterback-option keeps anymore because no one trusts Fields’ ability to cut them up from the pocket. And why would they? Every time Fields steps back in the pocket, it looks like he’s seeing ghosts. I’m not sure he trusts himself to make the requisite passing plays.

Put another way: Fields either starts throwing the ball better, or the Bears will continue struggling to move the chains.

If there is one saving grace for Fields, he knows he has to play more freely, to play his own style. He understands he has to say, you know, [expletive] it:

That’s a good mentality for Fields, even if the sentiment reeks of a player with little confidence (in himself or his team) and even if it might be too little too late. It comes at the right time, though: Chicago visits the defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs this Sunday.

If Fields can’t just let it rip in Kansas City, the Bears’ early-season firestorm will only grow in scale.