Good Luck to the Bears in Figuring Out What to Do With Justin Fields and the No. 1 Pick

The Chicago Bears were awful last year. If there was a silver lining, it’s that Justin Fields took some serious steps in establishing himself as competent NFL quarterback, displaying explosively in the running game and doing just enough with his arm to keep defenses honest. Taking a signal-caller early in the first-round is not any guarantee they’ll be any good, and Fields is a relative success story in that he’s not anything like Zach Wilson and other quarterbacks who quickly prove they probably don’t have the juice. And yet, this has created more potential problems than it does answers as a great debate rages now regarding what the Bears should do with their position of power and the No. 1 overall pick.

Mike Tannenbaum, appearing on Get Up this morning, made it clear that he’s in the camp believing the franchise should deal Fields and reset the rookie clock with Alabama’s Bryce Young.

This is life in the NFL. Jalen Hurts almost won a Super Bowl at the end of a year that opened with many wondering if the Eagles had their guy. It feels as though there’s a strong push to buck wisdom and let perfect be the enemy of good. From a process standpoint, wheeling and dealing and putting an unproven entity out there means the Bears would be staking their near- and medium-term futures on getting two moves correct instead of just one.

Bloggers are expected to have an opinion on everything, and yet in this case, it’s really hard for me to come to any type of conclusion. Fields seems to be exactly good enough to keep despite flirtations and exactly good enough to use as leverage without worrying about bidding adieu to a generational talent who doesn’t like cold weather.

There are many smart people who work for the Bears and yet the truth of the matter is they don’t really know either. This is a gamble and a coin flip. The results will dictate how we view what they chose to do.

Good luck?