Bears general manager Ryan Poles says he wants to do what’s best for the franchise when it comes to quarterback Justin Fields and the No. 1 overall pick in the April draft, which the team owns. I believe him. But I also believe that, because he’s human, he’s thinking about his legacy, too.
He can’t want to be the guy who passed on quarterback C.J. Stroud, the rookie who is playing extraordinarily well for the Texans, and the guy who passed on USC quarterback Caleb Williams, whom many draft experts expect to be the No. 1 overall pick this year.
Poles saw what Stroud and the Packers’ Jordan Love did in their playoff debuts last weekend. Both threw for three touchdown passes in victories. Both had passer ratings of 157.2, which is almost perfect. He can see that Love is going to be a divisional pain in the Bears’ butt for the next 10 years. He needs to respond with someone better than Fields.
In terms of legacy, I’d rather be the guy who made the mistake of trading Fields after three pedestrian seasons as a passer than the guy who made the mistake of not drafting what could have been the Bears’ first franchise quarterback in forever (Williams).
In good news, what’s good for Poles is good for the Bears.
I don’t think there’s much of a choice here. Oh, I’ve heard people say that Fields’ play in the latter portion of the season has made Poles’ decision difficult. But that’s weak comparison shopping at work. Fields was bad enough early in the season that some of us begged for a change at QB, even if that meant throwing a rookie from a Division II school out there. By that low standard, what Fields did when he returned from a thumb injury was indeed spectacular. He ran well in the final seven games of the season. He always runs well.
But compared to the top passers in the league, he was merely fine in the those last seven contests, averaging 194 passing yards, with five TDs and three interceptions. Stroud led the league with 273.9 yards a game over the entire season.
Why would Poles gamble the Bears’ future and his reputation on that?
The obligatory qualifier is that no one can be sure about Williams or North Carolina quarterback Drake Maye, another likely high first-round pick. But many draft experts believe that Williams would have been the top pick in last year’s draft if he had been eligible. Some have called him the best prospect since, gulp, Peyton Manning.
Poles could have used last year’s No. 1 overall pick on Stroud, who starred at Ohio State. Instead, he traded it to the Panthers for four draft picks and wide receiver DJ Moore, who had an excellent season for the Bears in 2023. The Texans took Stroud, who threw for 4,108 yards. No Bears quarterback has ever thrown for 4,000 yards in a season.
Stroud is the living, breathing rebuttal to the argument that trading Fields would mean the Bears’ offense would have to start from square one with a rookie quarterback in 2024. If Williams is as good as everyone says he is, there’s reason to believe that the team could continue the steady rise it’s on. That’s a big “if,’’ but not as big as Fields’ “if’’ – if Fields can become as good a passer as he is a runner … .
The situation has to be weighing on Poles. No one said it was going to be easy. But a decision on Fields comes down to this: Has there been enough improvement in his play over three seasons to make you believe he’s going to be great anytime soon?
If the answer is no (it is), then you have to start shopping.
Poles says he likes to look in the eye of prospective draft picks to find out if they love football. He’ll do that with the top college quarterbacks in the coming weeks. It’s part of an overall evaluation process, and it makes sense. But it can be overrated. Remember how former Bears GM Ryan Pace fell in love with Mitch Trubisky’s “intangibles.” His work ethic? His blue-collar approach to life? His beater of a car?
Fields, another Pace draftee, seems like a fine teammate who really wants to win. But that hasn’t made him a great quarterback, at least not yet.
Pace will never be able to live down his decision to choose Trubisky over Patrick Mahomes. That, too, has to be weighing on Poles: Do I want to be remembered as the man who missed on Caleb Williams?
I think he knows the answer.
