Chicago Bears (Photo by Emilee Chinn/Getty Images)
Sunday’s Week 3 loss to the Cleveland Browns was about as low as you can get for a Chicago Bears fan.
The 26-6 drubbing was more than enough to send Bears fans into an angry spiral — one that might not end until head coach Matt Nagy is fired.
Rookie quarterback Justin Fields made his first regular season start, and it was supposed to be a feel-good kind of day. Even if the Bears did lose, it wasn’t supposed to happen like that. This was somewhat of a home-away-from-homecoming for Fields, too, as he returned to the state where he once lit up the Big Ten.
The box score would tell you that Fields played poorly. His QBR of 6.0 qualifies as historically bad. His one — yes, one — net passing yard is a symbol of one hilariously bad offensive performance by the Bears. But, none of this was his fault.
Chicago Bears rookie quarterback Justin Fields should take no blame for the Week 3 debacle in Cleveland.
We can talk all day long about how Fields didn’t get the necessary reps with the first team, or how his head coach once labeled him the team’s “scout team” quarterback. There are plenty of narratives to get this argument going in favor of the rookie.
But, still, some people (namely those who did not watch the game) would simply prefer to look at the box score and headlines. Those people would rather decide that Fields had a bad game, played awful and then move on.
As fans, we cannot and should not place the blame on Fields — nor can we allow anybody to do that. Instead, we should be focusing on these three key areas when looking at why the rookie and his offense struggled.