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Bears rookie quarterback
Justin Fields rolled right, looked back across the field and saw tight end
Jesse James with no one around him. He stopped and flicked the ball 24 yards in
the air toward James, who was so open when he caught the ball in the third
quarter Saturday that he moonwalked six yards into the end zone.
Bears fans, watching a
game at Soldier Field for the first time in 601 days, roared with approval at
the 30-yard touchdown pass.
So did Lakers star LeBron
James?
‘‘Justin Fields is so
SPECIAL man!!’’ he tweeted a minute later. ‘‘Keep going Young king.’’
The basketball great — a
lifelong fan of Ohio State, where Fields starred before the Bears drafted him —
used a crown emoji instead of the word ‘‘king.’’ The game Saturday wasn’t a
coronation, though; it was merely a 20-13 preseason victory against the
Dolphins at Soldier Field.
"Justin
Fields is so SPECIAL man!! Keep going Young"
— LeBron James tweeted (@KingJames) August 14. 2021
Still, Fields made the
Bears relevant on a live NFL Network broadcast that was only put in place
because of the national interest in him.
For the 43,235 fans at
the lakefront, it was enough to dream on — even if it was against the Dolphins’
second- and third-stringers.
‘‘Everybody here is
super-excited about the way that he played today,’’ Bears coach Matt Nagy said.
‘‘And we all want the same thing. We understand the buzz. We understand the
excitement. That’s why we drafted him.’’
The touchdown pass will lead
Fields’ highlight reel, followed closely by the eight-yard scoring run in which
he looked left, saw his tight end fall down, stepped behind rushing linebacker
Tyshun Render like a boxer avoiding a punch and sprinted left for a score.
‘‘He’s a natural,’’ said
receiver Rodney Adams, who led the Bears with four catches for 57 yards. ‘‘He’s
a leader. He commanded the huddle like he was supposed to. He came out there
and made plays. That’s what they brought him here for. It showed.’’
What will be forgotten —
but shouldn’t — were Fields’ struggles to that point. In his first nine plays,
the Bears gained a total of one yard.
Fields’ first drive was
short-circuited by back-to-back false-start penalties — welcome to the Bears,
kid — and his second featured three consecutive incompletions.
The third possession was
borderline disastrous. On first down, center Sam Mustipher snapped a ground
ball to Fields for a loss of two yards. After Fields threw an incompletion, he
decided to roll left on third-and-12. Rather than run out of bounds, he ran
toward cornerback Nik Needham and, just before he was hit, turned his back.
Fields fumbled. The Bears were lucky the ball rolled out of bounds.
The play was
all-too-similar to the hit Fields took in the College Football Playoff
semifinals against Clemson — and lamented during training camp.
Was the game too fast for
Fields?
‘‘It was actually kind of
slow to me,’’ he said.
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Did he have jitters?
‘‘Surprisingly, no,’’ he
said. ‘‘I was as calm as could be.’’
When the Bears got the
ball back at their own 23 with 45 seconds left in the first half, they decided
to let Fields throw against soft coverage. That did the trick to get him
unstuck. After guiding the Bears to their initial first down of the game,
Fields marched them a total of 42 yards in seven plays to set up a 53-yard
field goal by Cairo Santos.
That momentum carried
through the halftime break. Fields told his teammates to think back to how they
played in joint practices Wednesday and Thursday against the Dolphins. Fields
dominated the red-zone portion of practice Thursday.
‘‘I knew our offense
could put up points on them,’’ he said. ‘‘I was trying to tell those guys to
take it back to practice and execute.’’
It took Fields eight
plays to drive the Bears 77 yards before he scored on a touchdown run to start
the second half. The next drive, which covered 70 yards in seven plays, ended
in his touchdown pass to Jesse James.
His final drive was a
three-and-out that started at the Bears’ 2 and ended 14 seconds into the fourth
quarter. Fields sat down after completing 14 of 20 passes for 142 yards and
running five times for 33 yards. Playing behind a makeshift offensive line, he
was hit only once.
Andy Dalton, whom Nagy
anointed the starter months ago, was uninspiring. He completed 2 of 4 passes
for 18 yards and handed off twice in two possessions. After replacing Fields,
third-stringer Nick Foles was booed after his second play and again after his
third — both incompletions — by fans who didn’t have the chance to do so last
season.
One man was cheering
Fields, however. The rookie smiled when told of it.
Fields never has met
LeBron James but said Saturday was the second time he had gotten praise from
him on Twitter, the other being the Clemson game. He has admired him since he
was 6 years old and had a poster of him in his room as a boy.
‘‘It’s awesome for a
prestigious athlete like that to give me a shout-out,’’ Fields said.
‘‘Definitely awesome. For sure.’’
