(670 The Score) There was a brief moment at Halas Hall on Wednesday afternoon when it looked like the Bears had another disastrous press conference on their hands.
Seated at the podium, coach Matt Nagy sorted through the usual pre-question odds and ends -- injury reports, game statuses, etc. -- when he mentioned that quarterback Andy Dalton would be a full participant at practice for the first time since suffering a bone bruise in his left knee on Sept. 19. There was a palpable tension in the air as reporters opened Twitter, ready to start hammering away on their company-issued Dells. Nagy paused only for a second before delivering the best news Chicago's heard since Candace Parker came home.
"The last couple weeks we’ve had some good conversations internally," he said. "It’s helped us in the last couple weeks. Continuing that process this week, it’s led to making the decision to move with Justin as the starter."
Justin Fields is the Bears' permanent starting quarterback. The news hit like the lakefront's first fall breeze, only without any of the depressing stuff that follows. The trials and test runs are over, his interim status irrelevant. Dalton's bruised knee may have opened the door, but ultimately it was Fields' stellar bounce-back performance against the Lions on Sunday that closed it. Nagy wasn't lying when he said that Fields was his usual stoic self when learning the news, either. The rookie quarterback celebrated the news by watching film with his French Bulldog Uno, who sources say is a very good boy.
"Andy called me on the way home and he just told me it was a great opportunity for me and that’d he be here for it all, for everything I needed, and he just didn’t want it to be awkward," Fields said. "He didn’t want our relationship to change because of the situation. So I told him that was very comforting to hear from him."
I'm going to leverage this moment of unbridled joy you're feeling to give Nagy some credit. It's not going out on a limb to say he's been short on that lately -- at this point, if Nagy wanted to move into Halas Hall, he'd need someone to co-sign the lease. Honestly, would it have surprised anyone if he had named Dalton the starter against the Raiders this weekend? You could still hear some faint remaining desire to play Dalton in Nagy's voice as he heaped on praise for the veteran's professionalism.
"I’d be lying to you if I sat here and told you it wasn’t really hard to have that discussion with Andy yesterday," Nagy said. "I can’t say enough good things about Andy Dalton. I’ve been around a lot of special people — guys that have done things the right way. You look at this situation and he’s … I really think that he was playing well for us. I love the type of teammate that he is and continues to be. He’s as good as they get, really, I mean that."
And while it's probably true that Dalton is as good a guy as anyone on the Bears, the simple reality is that the same can't be said about him as a quarterback. As much as some would like to argue that developing Fields on the field now may come at the expense of a win or two, it's next to impossible to watch his tape against Detroit and conclude that a lesser playmaker should be in that spot. Since the Bears opened training camp in late July, that was the problem with Nagy -- whether it was the Patrick Mahomes stuff, That One Tweet or some sort of backroom handshake, the depth chart explanations always felt, at best, extraneous. There seemed to be little football logic behind the decision-making, which typically doesn't go over well with, you know, a football team. But like he did when he gave up play-calling to offensive coordinator Bill Lazor, Nagy found it within himself to abandon the dream for the reality.
"A big part of this is that, the growth," Nagy said of Fields. "You see when he got here in OTAs, we weren’t sure how it was gonna be. When he showed up in training camp, we weren’t sure how it was gonna be, and he showed us that he was ready to take that step. We got to the preseason … he showed us that he’s ready to go out there and make plays.
"And then when we got to the season as the backup, he was showing us as we said, 'Inspire your teammates when you're out there. When you're out there as a look-team quarterback, inspire your teammates. Make others better.' And so he did that."
Nagy and Fields were both honest about expecting plenty of mistakes in the coming weeks -- and because the Bears have the second-toughest remaining schedule in football, you can probably take them at their word there. But only two-and-a-half games into his career, Fields has already inspired his coaches, his teammates and an entire city. If that's not a franchise quarterback, I'm not sure what is.
Cam Ellis is a writer for 670 The Score and Audacy Sports. Follow him on Twitter @KingsleyEllis.