Justin Fields in Year 2 Mirrors MVP Candidate

Bears GM Ryan Poles doesn't make a habit of holding in-season press conferences so any time he talks, even on team broadcasts, it's important.

Prior to the Bears losing to Detroit 41-10, Poles made a comment about Justin Fields some construe as an attempt to maintain a position of trading strength in the draft.

"He's shown ability to make a ton of plays with his legs, no one questions his playmaking ability, but really growing as a passer is going to be the next step," Poles told team play-by-play announcer Jeff Joniak on WBBM. "And we can accomplish that now and obviously into the future as we continue to grow."

Bears fans who constantly worry about whether Poles actually likes Fields' abilities need to seize on the last part of his comment, "...into the future as we continue to grow," rather than worry about the part where he says Fields needs to grow as a passer.

Everyone knows Fields needs to grow as a passer and if they don't then they haven't been watching games.

It's entirely possible Poles didn't go overboard in his assessment of Fields' positives just because he actually might want to obtain draft picks by trading down, as some have suggested. This is valid.

A team desperate to draft Ohio State's C.J. Stroud or Alabama's Bryce Young might offer something worth a rebuilding team's attention for that draft slot, whether it's 1, 2, 3 or 4.

At least it's a theory.

It was reality with former Bears GM Ryan Pace, who foolishly threw away picks to move up one place and take Mitchell Trubisky in 2017. But it's not easy to find a GM who just climbed out from under a rock.

The chief reason to believe the Bears are not ultimately looking to use the pick for a quarterback themselves is, of course, Fields.

A horrendous day like he had on Sunday—and make no mistake, much of it was his own poor play—happens occasionally.

It happened to Jalen Hurts in Year 2 a few times.

In November last year, Hurts had a 17.5 passer rating with 45% completions (14 of 31) and three interceptions in a loss to the Giants, a team the Bears routed a few weeks later.

Hurts' career path so far has been mirrored by Fields to a large extent.

Fields' second-year completion percentage is only 60.4% but was over 62% until he completed only 7-of-21 against Detroit. Hurts' second-year percentage was 61.2%. Fields' passer rating dipped after Sunday's loss to 85.2 and Hurts' for his second year was 87.2. Fields had been higher than that before his poor game against Detroit.

Fields has 17 TD passes and Hurts threw 16 last year. Fields has 11 interceptions and Hurts threw nine last year. Fields is at 7.1 yards per attempt but has been at 7.5 most of the year. Hurts was at 7.3.

Hurts had those numbers and the advantage over Fields of not being sacked a league-high 55 times. He was able to stand upright and look downfield without Braxton Jones or Dieter Eiselen waving the pass rusher right through.

Hurts had three passing targets with more than 600 receiving yards. The Bears won't have any unless Cole Kmet has a career day for receiving yards. Blaming any of this on Fields isn't valid because he was good enough as a rookie to have two targets over the 600-yard mark, Kmet and Darnell Mooney. He simply doesn't have the legitimate targets with Mooney hurt.

Fields has been better this year as a runner than Hurts in either of the last two season.

So to think Poles would have given up on Fields already is rather far-fetched. That would be like Eagles coach Nick Sirianni giving up on Hurts before this year simply because he had a few poor games last year like the Giants game.

So it is likely Poles is simply playing "coy" for draft purposes, even if no one would believe the Bears would really draft a QB.

If this isn't the case, then an awful lot of people in Chicago will receive a large jolt on draft day.

TICKETS TO SEE JUSTIN FIELDS AND THE BEARS AVAILABLE THROUGH SI TICKETS

Twitter: BearDigest@BearsOnMaven