Justin Fields Aiming Big Now that They'll Count

Justin Fields has been around long enough so he knows the real meaning of preseason.

It's something to finish so they can get on to the regular season.

After the Bears had lost 24-21 to Buffalo to close preseason Saturday, Fields found little meaning in how the offense played in relation to the Sept. 10 opener against Green Bay.

"It's not the same thing," Fields said. "It's not the same plays we're going to be running. It's not the same defense."

Buffalo hit the Bears with a boatload of man-to-man pass coverage on Saturday.

"Green Bay doesn't do too much man coverage but yeah, so not really," Fields said. "Really just felt good to get back out on the field again and get in that game mode again."

So that was it, just having a glorified game of catch. They endured injuries to receivers and linemen and a disjointed preseason schedule to get to the last preseason game, and Fields at least got to hit DJ Moore once for 40 yards. Actually he hit Moore for 15 but then he spun away near the ground, popped back up and ran 25 yards.

"I mean he's great," Fields said of Moore's YAC ability. "He's definitely one of the better guys I've seen. Just his ability to even kind of go a little like that, come up and get more yards is going to be great for our offense, great for our team."

The play itself was something they've done numerous times in camp but not with results like this.

"Just play-action pass one of the plays we've been running for a little bit now," Fields said. "Got a little bit of suction from the play-fake by the linebackers. They were trying to drop back into their zone and he was open in the middle.

"That's a play you're probably going to see again sometime this year. But of course it was a good catch, and run after the catch by him and just good play overall."

Fields' only other completion went for a first down on a third-down screen near the goal line before he gave way to Tyson Bagent.

Fields can quickly turn away from the preseason but some remnants of it dog him and the Bears. Mainly, it's his offensive line's situation.

The makeshift line he played behind had third-string center Doug Kramer snapping because Cody Whitehair's injured hand wouldn't allow him to play center yet, so he was at left guard.

However, now it seems Kramer is also injured. He had his hand looked at, which means they have three injured centers counting backup Lucas Patrick.

"We think he's going to be OK," coach Matt Eberflus said. "We'll see where it goes. We'll take a look at it here overnight and see because a lot of times some things happen overnight. But we'll see where it is. But it looks positive."

The Bear aren't counting on Kramer to make snaps against the Packers, anyway. They'd like to get as many players back healthy as possible. The pass blocking wasn't spectacular, as Fields scrambled once and Bagent had to run four times. With Teven Jenkins, Nate Davis and Darnell Wright out, the Bears were down three starting offensive linemen.

"Praying for those guys to be back on the field soon, but they can't perform their best if they're not at their best so definitely hoping to have those guys back soon," Fields said.

Overall, Fields wants some games that count because it's tough to really gauge where their offense is at this point after the first team was held out two weeks ago and just practiced against the Colts, then came back this week for only two three-and-outs and then a scoring drive.

"I couldn’t tell you what we've gotten better at as a whole because it's been a crazy two weeks–we were in Indy, practicing there–there's been a lot going on these last couple weeks," Fields said. "I just know that we just try to be better then we were yesterday and just try to continue to improve each and every day and just attack every day like it's our last day.

"As long as we do that, I feel fine and I'm very confident that we'll be in a good spot for Week 1."

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