Bear Digest

Could Bears have been the Eagles simply by keeping Justin Fields?

The Super Bowl win by Jalen Hurts and the dominant Eagles defense showed how a winning organization succeeds but did it show the Bears should have kept Justin Fields?

Gene Chamberlain

Somehow the lesson from Sunday's Super Bowl is Justin Fields should have been kept as Bears QB? Really?
Somehow the lesson from Sunday's Super Bowl is Justin Fields should have been kept as Bears QB? Really? / Mike Dinovo-Imagn Images
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Sometimes the most obvious message is lost on people with a single-track mind.

Those people can distort anything to suit their own specific needs. In Chicago, this would be the Justin Fields die-hards.

For some reason, Jalen Hurts' success in winning the Super Bowl is being interpreted to mean Justin Fields could have won the Super Bowl in Chicago, and can elsewhere. It is also being twisted to show the quarterback who can run is a better style than a pure pocket passer win.

The truth is, the Super Bowl win by the Eagles shows any kind of quarterback can win if they make enough plays with their arm and/or legs but especially and probably only if they have the backing of a dominant defense and a good surrounding cast.

No one should have ever thought a running quarterback can't win, but they do need to be able to pass without making mistakes because it's their major function. And the Chiefs won their last Super Bowl mainly due to a defense that held the 49ers to 22 points. A complete team will always triumph and did this year as well as last year.

Patrick Mahomes won three of the previous four Super Bowls but didn't do it with his legs. He did it with a combination of his arm and legs, and especially with a great surrounding cast.

GM Howie Roseman has won two Super Bowls in Philadelphia using two different style quarterbacks and with strong supporting casts but both QBs Nick Foles/Carson Wentz and Hurts have been able to pass well enough without fouling up things.

The Eagles defense and defensive coordinator Vic Fangio on Sunday provided the opportunity and Hurts/running back Saquon Barkley took advantage.

This message has been apparent throughout Super Bowl history. 

The issue here is how it applies to Fields, and that's how he might have a style like Hurts but he doesn't play as well. He needs to improve if he's ever going to reach a better level for delusional Steelers fans or the Bears fans who like to live in the past.

Even Fields could win a Super Bowl, if he played as efficiently and threw as well as Hurts did this season. He didn't while in Chicago and hasn't for his entire career.

That's kind of a problem.

One major flaw keeping Fields from ever being a QB as good as Hurts is his fumbling. He has 44 career fumbles. Hurts does have 45,  but the difference is Fields has handled a ball from scrimmage 2,789 times, 1,564 fewer times than Hurts.

The fact Hurts threw for only 2,902 yards this season is also viewed as evidence Fields could win the Super Bowl because he has never reached 3,000 yards. But Hurts only played 15 games and Barkley made up the difference with a season that would have been over 2,000 yards if he'd been allowed to do it by his coach. The trouble with Fields is he has never hit even 2,902 yards passing or a number higher than 2,562 yards.

Fields averages 61.1% completions to 64.4% for Hurts for his career, did improve to 65.8% this year while Hurts improved to 68.7%, but Hurts hit 8.0 yards per attempt this year. That's a key quarterback statistic. Fields was at 6.9 yards per attempt in Pittsburgh for six games and scrapes 7.0 for his career.

You can't rewrite history, but the obvious thing in Philadelphia is an outstanding defense, an offensive line among or possibly the best in football, the best running back in the game and Hurts' ability to gain with the pass or run.

That's a very difficult combination to beat.

The Bears had an offensive line that has been a part of 50 sacks or more allowed in four straight seasons, a capable defense that crumbled when pressured by its own faltering offense and they have D'Andre Swift as a backfield companion and not Barkley.

It's fantasyland to think Fields or Mahomes or Caleb Williams could have done what Hurts did with that Bears mix.

The Super Bowl is for winners and closers. Fields has never been either, and those who cling to this silly, unhealthy thought that the Bears needed to keep him need to get a grip on reality.

Fields needs to become an actual starting quarterback in the NFL before anyone can worry about whether the Bears should have kept him so he could do what the Eagles did in the Super Bowl.

Maybe the best way to put it is the Bears could have been where the Eagles were Sunday, if they had Hurts at quarterback and not Fields, the Eagles' offensive line, the Eagles' defense, Vic Fangio as defensive coordinator for coach Nick Sirianni and Howie Roseman as GM.

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Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

BearDigest.com publisher Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.