Whether the Chicago Bears look for greener fields or stay with Justin Fields, the quarterback at the center of all the rumors says he doesn’t want to wallow in uncertainty every moment of every day.
Fields has been at the center of trade rumors because the underachieving Bears have the NFL’s top draft pick, and the potential exists for Chicago to deal Fields to fill some of Chicago’s holes while drafting his replacement. An alternate scenario has Fields remaining while Chicago trades the draft pick to address its talent gaps.
Fields stoked rumors that his time with the Bears was at an end when he unfollowed the team on Instagram.
“I’m glad we’re talking about it,’ he said in a clip from the St. Brown Brothers podcast that was posted to X.
“Why do people take social media so serious like?” Fields said.
Justin Fields reveals to the St. Brown brothers why he unfollowed the Bears on Instagram, via @The33rdTeamFB.
📹 https://t.co/PVuPFC1Ivd pic.twitter.com/b8zPSPDxMM
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) February 21, 2024
“I still mess with the Bears,” he said.
“I’m just trying to take a little break. I unfollowed the Bears and the NFL. I’m not just trying to have football on my timeline,” he said.
“It’s something that I don’t want to see on my timeline,” he said.
"I’m about to go on vacation, I don’t want to see no football," he said.
“It’s either ‘keep Fields’ or ‘we want Fields’ or it’s either ‘draft Caleb so it’s … man, I’m tired of hearing the talk,” he said, referring to USC quarterback Caleb Williams, considered a top prospect.
Yahoo Sports noted that Fields said later in the podcast he has had enough of the rumors.
“If it was up to me, I would want to stay in Chicago. I love the city. The city’s lit. The fans are great," he said. “The biggest thing is I just want it to be over. Let me know if I’m getting traded [or] let me know if I’m staying.”
Over at the Daily Caller, Andrew Powell feels Fields’s pain.
“Personally, I feel like the Chicago Bears are completely mishandling the Justin Fields situation,” Powell wrote.
“Despite the fact they gave him complete crap to work with, the dude still put up some solid numbers in 2023. And now they want to point the blame at him and believe that Caleb Williams is gonna be their savior? Ha! We’re talking about the same guy who couldn’t win at USC with an incredible amount of talent around him,” he wrote.
“I don’t blame Justin Fields for saying screw the Bears … I’d want out too,” he wrote.
Others say the time has come to wave goodbye.
“All in all, there’s simply no evidence to suggest that Fields is -- or even is becoming -- a high level starting QB. And if he’s not at that level by the end of season 3, he is almost certainly never going to be. The last QB to become a high-level player starting in year 4 after not being one through his first 3 seasons was Drew Brees, and that was 20 years ago,” Johnathan Wood wrote on Da Bears Blog.
