Higher Level of Maturity for Justin Fields

Teven Jenkins sees Bears quarterback Justin Fields leading like a "10-year vet" a year after the team needed someone to step up at crunch time.

It probably started last year when the Bears went into a total tailspin and lost one close game after another.

Never mind that their defense couldn't stop anyone and allowed 33.1 points on average in the final 10 games.

Justin Fields was blaming himself for close losses and apologized to the team after he failed to lead a game-winning drive for the second straight week in a 27-24 loss to Atlanta.

The defensive players would hear nothing of his apology, as they knew they had every opportunity to stop the Falcons and failed to do it.

Now Fields seems to have taken another step up in this area, just as he has in understanding the team's offense.

Guard Teven Jenkins sees it as a higher level of maturity.

"He carries himself, I would say, probably like a 10-year vet right now," Jenkins said. "Just seeing how he commands that huddle and what he wants to see out of all of us, it's like a wake-up call for me to see that I need to start pushing myself to get on his level because he's demanding that sort of effort out of all of us."

Tight end Cole Kmet pointed out how the leadership affects the rest of the team.

"His leadership keeps growing," Kmet said. "I think he just gets more confidence in himself every day and how he comes in the locker room every day, so that's been cool to see.

"But we'll see where it goes and we're excited about it. But we're going to be great around him. That's our goal this year. We're going to help him a lot so he doesn't have to do all of the running he had to do last year. So it should work out for both sides."

Matt Eberflus saw Fields' influence enveloping the entire team and not simply the offense.

"Yeah, I just see leadership," Eberflus said. "He's always the hardest worker. He's always the first guy out, last to leave. He's always done that. "But now I can see that, because his confidence is growing, he is taking that to a different level in terms of being a vocal leader and talking to guys, and being able to bring guys together and then crossing the aisle."

The aisle would be the invisible but sometimes towering division between the offense and defense.

The classic case of this happened in the 1960s once, Bears lore goes. Following a Chicago takeaway defensive end Doug Atkins told quarterback Bill Wade and the offense, "Hold 'em."

"We really don’t have an aisle here at the Bears," Eberflus said. "We're all Chicago Bears, so it's important that he's working with the defensive guys and talking to those guys.

"Those guys all respect him because of his work ethic and now he's starting to be more vocal, so that's pretty neat to watch."

Fields hears all of this and talks like a true leader. It's not necessarily his impact but the willingness of others to follow.

"I just think everybody's buying in, even more than last year, so it's great to see," Fields said. "Of course, for me, I've definitely grown as a leader.

"I think even with all the new guys coming in–they've made it easy, they've bought into our culture here, just competing day-in and day-out, and really just having that championship mindset.

"We're all working towards the same goal, all working towards getting better, and I think we just gotta take it a day at a time. Everybody's been great up to this point, and we just look to take that next step."

Twitter: BearDigest@BearsOnMaven