Justin Fields' Last Rookie Shot at Consistency

Barring a late setback to his ankle injury, Justin Fields will start in the regular-season finale against the Minnesota Vikings as be becomes the third quarterback change in three weeks for the Bears.

Fields went through a full practice on Wednesday and was anointed starter by coach Matt Nagy.

"I'm excited to get back out on the field and play with my teammates," said Fields, who missed the last two starts, both Bears wins. "And, I mean, I’m able to walk pain free now. So that's good, and of course running a little bit too."

Fields said last week he was unable to run pain-free at all.

"I mean, you don't get these moments back," Fields said. "There's teammates on my team who–I don't know who may be here next year—so I'm just getting that one last game with those guys in and just not taking any of it for granted.

"Of course I could just sit out the last game and just get ready for next season, but every opportunity I get to play the game I love, I'm gonna go and do it, especially if I can do it and stuff like that when we have one more. I think it’s just important just to you know show what kind of guy I am to my teammates and my coaches."

While numbers show steady small-but-steady improvement from Fields over the year, there hasn't been a huge breakthrough to a higher level of consistency. He does flash great plays or several big plays in games, though. Playing a consistent, strong game as a passer overall must be a goal in the finale.

Fields still has a low 73.5 passer rating and a so-so 6.9 yards per pass attempt. He has fumbled a dozen times and thrown 10 interceptions.

The bottom-line stat is losses in his starts and the Bears have gone 2-8 in the games he started, with seven consecutive defeats.

The Bears are 3-2 in games started by Dalton and 1-0 under Nick Foles.

Now he can try to continue to improve one area he says he's become better at since first coming on in Week 2 to relieve injured Andy Dalton—such as seeing the field.

"Really just, I think what I do now is I can see the field better in terms of seeing more of a wide perspective than locking down on one route or one to two routes, just knowing where my checkdowns are and kinda knowing where my get-out answers are and just knowing where all those guys are," he said.

This will give Fields the chance to show his progress better than some other games because he just played the Vikings in his last start and could manage to get the offense in position only for a field goal, until they scored on the game's final play with a touchdown pass to Jesper Horsted.

Nagy said their is no discouragement on his part or that of his staff with the lack of wins with Fields playing. Instead, he lumps Fields in with what he considers one of the successes of his coaching regime and that's being able to develop younger players.

"Well, I think he's a big part of that and he’s done everything that we’ve asked him to do this year in the developmental part," Nagy said. "So you know, as we know, at the quarterback position, it takes time and as I’ve been saying from the very beginning, whether it’s games or years, you look at some of the greatest quarterbacks to ever play this game, they're still getting better and better whether they're in their eighth, ninth or 10th year.

"So he definitely has developed and improved this year from the very start, I mean, from the day he got here, what he can do within this offense to the experience he's had to building relationships with his teammates and coaches."

Fields is about as serious on the field and at Halas Hall it gets, but says he's still had fun despite his first real exposure to losing. He definitely experienced very little of it at Ohio State with two teams that made the national semifinals and one national championship game played.

Fields credited teammates with making it more fun, especially those who sought to lighten things up like wide receiver Marquise Goodwin

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"He just said no matter what, you're gonna have a rough year or a good year, it's just remember to always have fun," Fields said. "That's one thing he's always done out here on the field is have fun. You always see him dancing and doing stuff like that, so he just reminded me to have fun."

Winning is fun, too. Fields and teammates want to go out with one. It's encouraged him to see the entire team playing hard even when he wasn't part of it the last two weeks in wins over Seattle and the New York Giants.

"Knowing that we have no chance to get in the playoffs, it just shows you that we're not just gonna try to get to the offseason as fast as possible," he said. "Guys still want to show up to work every day and get better and just really take every day as an investment.

"When you go to work, just invest in your craft and you're getting better not only for the game coming up, but for multiple opportunities that come up even next year. Just kinda continue to get better each and every day.”

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