Justin Fields Takes It Up Another Notch
Justin Fields said his legs were a little tired and beat up Sunday in Dallas, less than a week after the Bears had beaten New England Monday night.
So he was still feeling it on Sunday in his team's 49-29 loss.
Perhaps if he could have felt it a little more he might not have been able to leap so high over Micah Parsons when he should have been tagging down the Cowboys linebacker on the gound. Because Parsons then got up and ran it back 36 yards for the TD that more or less sealed a Bears loss.
Essentially, Fields was up in the air when he should have been down tagging Parsons. It was a day when he elevated the team with a rally but needed not to be elevated on that fumble by David Montgomery.
"I mean you're always gonna have ups and downs in the game," Fields said, no pun intended. "You can't look at one play. You've just gotta keep fighting."
The Bears really couldn't come back after that one, but they had done a pretty good job earlier thanks to Fields' passing and running. He had 60 yards rushing, including the first Bears TD on a 3-yard run to cut the deficit to 14-7.
It required a bit of a physical play, but he'd already taken one hit he wish he could have avoided. It was his first scramble for a first down along the sideline, when he could have run out of bounds and extended the drive but fought for extra yards and took a shot from behind.
"I mean it's a little bit beat up," he said. "
You know my legs were kind of sore but I couldn't run like 100 percent today but hopefully this full week (of practice) will get me back right and I'll be be able to go 100 percent."
The real problem was Fields on a sack aggravated a contusion on his hip, suffered last week against the Patriots.
"So when I got sacked I fell on my hip and then kind of just rebothered it, so I just took some Advil and I just hopped back in the game," Fields said. "But yeah like I said just the little bumps and bruises and stuff."
The problem is Fields takes a lot of these. He had eight runs for 60 yards Sunday and took four sacks, as well. This came after he had 14 carries for 82 yards against New England Monday.
He also took a hit to the neck area for a penalty once while throwing it downfield.
The Bears let him risk three deep throws on Sunday on the way to 17 of 23 for 151 yards and two touchdowns.
"I mean yeah if you want to have success in the NFL you're always gonna have to, you know, be a threat to stretch the defense vertically," Fields said. "You have to take those shotsdownfield so they're not all up in your grill."
In this case, they were in his grill anyway.
"So, I mean, just, every successful offense in this NFL, in the league, they're gonna attack you vertically," Fields said. "So, of course, we're gonna keep doing that for sure."
He did hit a 30-yarder to Darnell Mooney for 36 yards on second-and-9 in the third quarter. Beyond that it was a 17-yard TD pass to N'Keal Harry coming across the formation and a 10-yarder to Kmet.
Fields has maintained he is more comfortable within the offense and seeing things better. He did see something on Harry's TD and took advantage.
"I think they had 10 guys on the field on that play," Fields said.
He saw a coverage look he liked, besides, and found Harry coming across the formation.
"A great route and, you know, just just put it on him and scored a touchdown," Fields said.
The Kmet TD was a corner route and Kmet snuck out into the open, so it was simple enough to find him. Then again, a few weeks ago against Washington it wasn't so simple when Ryan Griffin got wide open for a short TD and Fields overthrew him.
So passing now appears to be progressing as much as his running. For the second straight game he had a career-best passer rating, this time 120.
"I'm just growing for real, I can't put (finger) on it but just you know growing and getting better each and every week," Fields said.
Now if they could do something about his tackling.
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