Justin Fields Shows He'll Find a Way

It definitely wasn't a pretty Bears win but Justin Fields' ability to persevere might go a longer way toward his eventual success in the NFL than other qualities.

After what happened at halftime against the San Francisco 49ers Sunday, Bears offensive coordinator Luke Getsy will need to paint a smile on his face in the future.

If quarterback Justin Fields keeps playing the second half of games like he did against the 49ers, Getsy will not need to paint on a smile—it will be there already.

The Bears saw in Fields Sunday a quality he had shown in college and really hadn't the chance to display much to date. That was simply gritty play or finding a way to win while facing adversity, the kind of thing any coach loves seeing from any player.

"Of course, we knew that we had a slow start so just being completely different from the first half to the sedcond half, just the energy that we had at halftime, everybody was so positive," Fields said. "Luke had a smile on his face at halftime, so I think just that little body language just kind of brought everybody on their feet and kind of encouraged eveybody to come out differently in the second half."

Maybe the smile gave Fields some confidence, but his ability to persevere and be gritty were qualities former Bears coach Matt Nagy had said he saw in the quarterback on film last year after the draft and then after he became starter.

Eberflus saw it again on Sunday in the second half when Fields had a 145.8 passer rating on 5 of 8 for 102 yards and two touchdowns. He had thrown for only 19 yards in the first half when no one but running backs caught his throws.

"Yeah, I would say mental toughness, mental toughness," Eberflus said, describing Fields' great strength. "He was able to move all those things aside, figuring it out how he was going to grip the ball better, how he was going to operate and then figure out the game as the game went on, and move the ball down the field.

"And that's what to me is outstanding. What an outstanding thing for a young quarterback to have that mental toughness, all of those things going on and to be able to laser-like focus in and get the job done. So to me, that was very impressive."

The gritty take on it all stemmed largely from the weather and field conditions, at times in monsoon-like conditions. The field didn't drain well, either.

"That was a hard-fought game," Fields said. "A lot of grit poured into that game, just the mentality. We know it's always not gonna go our way or we might run into things, run into equations on the field that we can't control.

"So just control the controllable and executing what we can and just, as my quarterback coach says, 100% on a 100-percenter. So everything that we can control, just making sure we're doing the right thing."

Part of the gritty approach included capitalizing when the opportunity was there. The Bears were 2-for-2 in the red zone for touchdowns and one was after Eddie Jackson's interception and return to the 49ers 21.

"Just not taking that for granted, going out there and executing and making them pay for their mistakes," Fields said. "I think we expect to do that as an offense. So, we're just glad that we executed as well as we did."

It could rain again this Sunday night in Green Bay as the weather calls for some, but probably nothing like the deluge in Chicago last game. Still, the Bears will need to overcome and that gritty approach could come in handy. Fields knows this based on last year.

"Yeah we were (there) on Sunday night last year," he said. "So, just the environment that they have there, of course it's going to be loud there, so just preparing for that this week."

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