Justin Fields first NFL start giving Bears fans so much hope

Chicago football fans have been forced to live off the memory of their beloved 1985 Bears, and most recently compelled to curse the football gods and general manager Ryan Pace for drafting Mitchell Trubisky in 2017 instead of Patrick Mahomes.

Then Justin Fields happened.

Justin Fields happened on Wednesday when head coach Matt Nagy made the announcement Bears fans have been waiting for since Pace traded up with the Giants and forked over a 2022 first-round pick to land the Ohio State product.

Hope howls now in the Windy City.

Andy Dalton, who was never more than a placeholder, was ruled out with a knee bruise, so the Justin Fields Era will begin Sunday against the Browns at FirstEnergy Stadium in Cleveland, not far from Columbus, where he spent his Ohio State playing days â€" unless Nagy has a death wish and returns the job to Dalton once he is healthy, against the wishes of fans and media.

Where have you gone, Sid Luckman? A desperate city turns its lonely eyes to you, Justin Fields. Woo, woo, woo.

From all precincts comes the plea: Be the savior.

Be better than Rick Mirer. Be better than Jim McMahon. Be better than Jay Cutler. Be better than Rex Grossman. And, of course, be better than Trubisky.

And heavens to Papa Bear Halas: Maybe you can even be better than fellow rookie QBs Trevor Lawrence, Zach Wilson, Trey Lance and Mac Jones.

“It’s like a weight’s off our shoulder, because we’re playing the Cleveland Browns Sunday, I think we’re No. 2 in the number of quarterbacks since 2000 that we went through â€" I think the Browns are No. 1,” a man named Don Wachter said on Friday afternoon. “We thought maybe we had it with Jim McMahon, he got us a Super Bowl. … I love Bears history, but the last great quarterback we had consistently was Sid Luckman. … I don’t know if you know this fact: The Bears are the only team in the NFL that have never had a quarterback throw for 4,000 yards, or 30 touchdowns. So we’re waiting for that magic 4,000.”

Justin FieldsUSA TODAY Sports

Wachter, 59, grew up a fan of Walter Payton and Doug Plank in St. John, Ind., 30 miles south of Chicago. He has been a Bears season-ticket holder since 1985, when he was a student at Purdue and he began calling himself Bearman in October 1996.

“I actually just completed my 200th straight home game without missing,” he said.

He sees Fields No. 1 jerseys everywhere in and around the city. Asked to describe the excitement level about Fields, Bearman said: “I guess on a scale 1-10, it’s an 11.” He added: “This town is his. This city is his. He’s gonna be so beloved here as long as he does well.

“There’s just so much hope, that they finally got it right.”

McMahon was Chicago’s punky Super Bowl hero, but since then, apparently Somebody Up There liked Vince Lombardi, because Brett Favre arrived and then passed the baton, albeit reluctantly, to Aaron Rodgers, and the Packers won two more Super Bowl championships. How much solace can there possibly be knowing the Vikings and Lions have never won one?

“Those stats come on the TV constantly about Favre and Rodgers, and they put up our stats, how many quarterbacks we’ve had in that time span,” Bearman said. “Yeah, it’s painful, and the Packers, you know, they rub it in our faces and so forth.

“We can’t get that position right. Bad luck, bad drafts and so forth. There was a lot of pessimism after this past season with the Bears management whether or not they would get this right.”

Justin FieldsGetty Images

There was outright jubilation in the city on draft night when Chicago believed the embattled Pace got it right.

“We were saying, ‘Thank you Denver Broncos.’ We couldn’t understand why they didn’t pick him,” Bearman said. “We just didn’t think there was a chance in hell we were gonna get him.”

Bearman recalled a similar level of excitement when the Bears traded for Cutler in 2009. Cutler had the arm all right, but he didn’t have the winning personality. Trubisky didn’t have the experience to be the second pick of the draft, or the leadership or confidence.

“But Fields, he checks all the boxes: big program, experience, playing in big games. He could take the pressure. His intelligence in the tests they gave him was very high â€" he could have went to Princeton. His athleticism,” Bearman said. “There’s a huge contingent of Bear fans here and the media that wanted him to start from the beginning.”

Of course Bearman was in that camp. You would be hard-pressed to find a Bears fan who would be in favor of a return to Dalton when he is healthy.

“Unless for some reason he just shows that he just is completely puzzled or can’t grasp the system or something and needs to watch,” Bearman said.

Fields is very much in the mold of the modern-day dual threat-quarterback.

“With Justin, there’s the play that’s called, and then there’s the second play that turns into kind of some backyard football,” tight end Cole Kmet said.

Bearman, inducted into the Ford Hall of Fans in 2019, gives a shoutout to fellow Bears fan Paul Zywicki, nicknamed “The Road Warrior,” who has a current streak of attending 363 games, home and away, including preseason, and has missed just six road games, preseason and regular season, since 1992.

“This guy has suffered the most of anybody with this quarterback situation,” Bearman said.

They will hang on to the hope that the suffering is about to end. Fields’ Bears teammates have not seen him sweat this week. You either have swag or you don’t. You either have it or you don’t.

“I think being more this way â€" just being stoic and being even-keeled â€" I think that just keeps my mind calm and allows me to think more,” Fields said this week.

Bear down, Justin Fields. And shoo away those ghosts of quarterbacks past.

Source: NYPOST

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