Justin Fields fiasco shows how crazy quest for star passer can be

What happened Saturday?

Is it really true that the Bears handed quarterback Justin Fields to the Steelers for pretty much nothing?

The Bears got a 2025 conditional sixth-round pick in return for the man who at various times the last three years was said to be the developing savior for the entire franchise.

Just surround him with more talent! That was the battle cry.

OK, dumping Fields could possibly turn into a fourth-round pick for the Bears if he plays over half the snaps for the Steelers this upcoming season. But that seems unlikely because Russell Wilson was brought in to be their starter.

So I was, like, what?

This is ... it?

Talk about vanishing with a whimper and not a bang. I mean, sixth-round picks don’t always make your team. Or they often add little.

Remember Kylie Fitts, the Bears’ sixth-round pick in 2018? He was featured on “Good Morning America’’ in 2022, explaining why he quit the NFL after too many concussions. He started one game in his four-year career, for the Cardinals.

Zachary Thomas was a Bears sixth-round pick in 2022. He never played for the team. Running back Trestan Ebner, also a Bears sixth-round pick in 2022, rushed for 54 yards and was waived.

And now the Steelers abruptly have nine-time Pro Bowl selection Wilson, 35, and Fields, 25, as their quarterbacks, paying only $4.5 million total for the pair in 2024. Consider, in contrast, that a team like the dung-heap Giants will be paying their middling quarterback, Daniel Jones, $40 million.

This is just weird. All of it.

It’s the bizarro quarterback fog.

The underlying issue is that quarterbacks are so coveted in the NFL that everything about them is a hunch, a lie, a grab, a rave, a dump, a general panic to get the Next Greatest Thing so your team wins.

Maybe Fields will develop with the Steelers, become a franchise star. It’s more likely he’ll be an updated Mitch Trubisky.

Let’s go back to the 2017 draft, when the Bears began their latest meandering pinball quest for a savior quarterback. Then-general manager Ryan Pace needlessly traded up to the second pick to take Trubisky, leaving quarterback Patrick Mahomes to start his Hall of Fame career with the Chiefs.

Then last year, the Bears traded the No. 1 pick to the Panthers, missing a chance to draft quarterback C.J. Stroud, who went to the Texans at No. 2 and was named NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year.

The Bears kept Fields, who could run but was less familiar with passing.

So Mahomes and Stroud. There’s two misses. Trubisky and Fields. Two mistakes.

The question is: Did the whole league know all along that Fields was a dud and only the Bears didn’t?

Then, too, did general manager Ryan Poles hold on to Fields so long in the offseason while quarterbacks were moving all over the place — Kirk Cousins to the Falcons, Kenny Pickett to the Eagles, etc. — that his value plummeted?

The head spins.

Now the Bears must take USC’s Caleb Williams with the No. 1 pick. There’s no choice. Miss on that, and it’s all a joke.

Williams has to be that ‘‘generational talent’’ everybody always talks about. He has to star from the git-go. He has receivers, runners, as much as any quality rookie could demand because great quarterbacks usually are drafted by high-picking, lousy teams.

Poles has signed some talent. And he has some draft picks left. But if Williams is a generational talent and everybody knows it, why didn’t everybody know Mahomes was?

Are we all sure 2023 Heisman winner Jayden Daniels won’t be a better pro than Williams? What about Drake Maye?

It’s amazing how quarterbacks always go at the tip-top of the draft, the fear of missing out on one driving the frenzy. In the 2021 draft, five quarterbacks went in the first 15 picks. Fields went fourth at No. 11, ahead of Mac Jones, behind Trevor Lawrence, Zach Wilson and Trey Lance.

Now the quarterback frenzy is getting ready to start again. It’s crazy. Somehow the Bears’ lowly sixth-round pick from the Steelers, the ‘‘reward’’ for general quarterback miscalculation and ineptitude, can be traced back to missing out on Mahomes seven years ago.

It’s a winding, bump-filled road, but it can be connected. Try it. And marvel, as I have.

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