Justin Fields has been unable to escape rumors about his future, and it’s at least plausible he’s playing somewhere else next season.
The third-year quarterback is immensely talented, but has struggled with consistency throughout his young career. At this point his outlook is a player with a high ceiling, but far from a sure thing to become a legitimate franchise quarterback.
If there ever was a time for the Bears to move on from Fields, it would be now. A decision on his fifth-year option has to be made by May, so the Bears – or a team he would get traded to – has to determine whether they’ll commit to him for one or two more seasons.
Perhaps more importantly, the Bears likely will have the No. 1 pick in the draft, which they got in the deal that landed them DJ Moore. That’s in addition to their own first-round pick, which would be No. 5 if the draft was today. They could take Caleb Williams or Drake Maye with the Panthers pick, bolster the roster elsewhere with another high pick, and get quality assets in return for Fields.
That situation, plus the talent we’ve seen from Fields, had 92.9 The Game’s Carl Dukes saying Thursday that the quarterback-needy Falcons need to make a push for Fields.
“I think I (see) our next future quarterback (in Fields),” Dukes said. “If you can find a way to make this happen and the Bears are willing to part ways -- and let me say this about the Bears since we’re talking about this … the Bears’ decision on Justin is not personal. What I mean by that is, whether you think he can play or not, he’s already proven he can play. What the decision is going to be for the Bears is financial.
“The Bears could draft the No. 1 overall pick, it could be, let’s just say for hypothetical sake it’s Caleb Williams. Williams comes to you and guess what, you get four years of a rookie deal to continue to build your football team around instead of having to pay Justin 25, 35, 40 – whatever you want to pay him. It’s a financial deal. The other part of this though is if you trade for Justin, you then incorporate that (return) in the mix with your football team.”
Thus far the Desmond Ridder experiment isn’t working. Taylor Heinicke isn’t a long-term option. If Arthur Smith even survives the offseason, he’ll enter 2024 with his seat plenty hot. The Falcons have too much talent on both sides of the ball – not to mention the fact they play in a bad division – to let the opportunity in front of them go to waste.
The Falcons theoretically could draft a quarterback, but given where they’re likely to fall in the draft order, it wouldn’t be someone of Maye’s or Williams’ caliber. They’d probably have to trade up even for a player like Jayden Daniels, and as the Falcons know full well, rolling with a rookie quarterback comes with its share of risk.
It doesn’t help that the upcoming quarterback free agent also features mostly stopgap options – further necessitating the need to trade for someone like Fields.
“The guys that are out there are not as good as he is, from a talent and upside standpoint, I don’t care what they’re doing right now in the league,” Dukes said. “Even Jake Browning, who I think is a player, I think he’s actually pretty damn good.”