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Chicago Bears quarterback Justin Fields is coming off one of the worst games of his young career.
In Chicago’s 27-10 loss to the Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field on September 18, Fields completed seven passes on 11 attempts for 70 yards, an interception and a rushing touchdown. There were multiple occasions in which Bears receivers gained enough separation and had gotten wide-open throughout the game, but Fields waited too long and neglected to pull the trigger.
After the loss to Green Bay, Fields met with the media and was asked if he thought losing to the rival Packers hurt the players or the fans more, and he said: “It hurts more in the locker room than (it hurts) the Bears fans. At the end of the day, they aren’t putting in any work. I see the guys in the locker room every day. I see how much work they put in. Coming out of a disappointing loss like this, it hurts.”
Naturally, social media took the quote and ran with it, with Barstool Sports sharing one snippet of Fields’ quote with zero context.
When speaking with reporters a few days later on September 21, the second-year signal-caller addressed his previous comments about the fans.
Fields: ‘I Would Never Disrespect’ Bears Fans
Fields was initially asked about how he moves on after a bad game, and he took the opportunity to address his previous comments about Bears Nation in his reply. Here’s what Fields said about it all:
Yeah, I was mad after the game. I’d like to address this now to get everything cleared up. There was a thing I said on Sunday after the game where I said the fans don’t put in work. First off, I was frustrated after the game. Number one, I didn’t want to talk to you guys (the media). I wasn’t in the mood to come and talk to you guys. So, I should’ve done a better job of explaining what I meant. What I meant by that is I’m talking about work regarding the game on Sunday, winning the game. I don’t know any fans. I don’t know what they’re doing in their personal lives. I respect every fan that we have. I’m glad that we have fans. I would never disrespect anybody on what they do or what they love to do. It came off like that. Some social media outlets, they quoted my quote and they got a big buzz out of it. So, of course they did a great job doing that. Of course social media is going to do that. But I just wanted to clear that up.
The 23-year-old QB didn’t need to explain himself, but it’s clear he wanted to send a message to Bears fans. It was a candid and passionate response from Fields, who some described as “animated” during the presser.
Fields Learned Valuable Lesson About Public Speaking
Fields, who started just the 14th game of his career against Green Bay, says it didn’t take long for him to hear about backlash from Bears fans who were upset about his comments.
“I was getting tagged in a bunch of stuff on social media, so the fans definitely let me know, for sure,” said Fields. “Again, I didn’t mean it to come off like that. But of course Barstool or whatever tried to make it seem like I did, so they did a good job of doing that, and there were people who bought into that, so hey, just clearing that up.”
The former 11th overall pick also may have learned a valuable lesson about self editing when speaking to the media.
“As long as I’m in this profession, that it’s never going to go away, so just gotta either be really clear to everything that I say, be really descriptive to what I mean, or really just don’t say anything at all,” he added.
Sounds like good advice.
You can watch Fields’ full press conference below:
