It has been a trying season for the Chicago Bears so far. A transitional year that has many around the team thinking about the future has been littered with injuries and sloppy play. However, they played well enough on Sunday that many felt they should have been able to walk off the field victorious. One of those people who felt that way was quarterback Justin Fields.
Bears QB Justin Fields Confident Despite Loss to Lions
In what was his first action back from an injury that saw him miss a month of the season, Fields felt like he and the team played well enough to win the game. The only problem is that they didn’t get it done.
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Despite leading for most of the afternoon, the Lions managed to rally back in the last minutes to take a 29-26 lead. The score deficit would widen by two more points after that as with 29 seconds left on the clock, Fields was stripped by Aidan Hutchinson, resulting in a safety and securing the Lions’ 31-26 victory.
When Fields discussed the game with reporters after the loss, he had a sense of positivity about the day despite not securing the ultimate price.
“We just played a heck of a team, No. 1 in our division, probably a top three, top five in the league right now,” Fields said.
“And if I’m keeping it real with y’all, we should have won that game. It just comes down to finishing and executing at the end of the game, so that’s how you do it. Jared Goff, he does a great job not turning the ball over, and the way our defense was able to create takeaways was big for us. And as an offense, we got to, of course, turn those into touchdowns rather than field goals or no points at all.”
Fields summed up his thoughts by acknowledging that he and the rest of the team need to be the ones to make the big play at that moment, not the other way around. “When those big moments happen, when we need those big plays, we got to execute.”
Fields Impressed on Sunday
Fields’ words carry some weight as he was impressive during the loss. Fields finished the day going 16 for 22 for 169 yards and one touchdown in the air while adding 18 carries for 104 yards, averaging 5.8 yards per carry on the ground.
The Bears have a lot of questions that need answering ahead of the 2024 draft, and one of those is if Fields really is the man for the future. If he continues to progress and be a positive within a rough season, he may make decisions harder for the Bears front office than maybe they originally thought.
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