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Justin Fields and Jordan Love are going to be featured parts of one of the biggest rivalries in football in 2023 as the starting quarterbacks of the Chicago Bears and Green Bay Packers. Off the field, though, the pair of former first-round picks don’t mind sharing the spotlight to raise the international prestige of football.
After June 15’s final veteran minicamp practice, Fields told reporters that he was heading to France to host a quarterback camp during this past holiday week and revealed that he would be running the camp alongside Love as well as Cleveland Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson — who share an agent in David Mulugheta.
“It’s going to be my first time in Europe,” Fields said Thursday. “Jordan Love’s gonna be up there, Deshaun Watson, so guys that I usually work with in the offseason a pretty good amount, they’re going to be out there. So, we’re just going to host a little football camp out there, and I”m just excited to be out there and be able to teach some kids overseas about American football.”
Fields and Love training together in the offseason isn’t a new revelation. With the same talent agency, Athletes First, representing them, there have been plenty of times in the past two offseasons where the two NFC North quarterbacks have hit the practice field together. Watson is also usually involved for the same reasons, dating back to the summer of 2021 when he was embroiled in numerous sexual misconduct allegations.
Whether that offseason relationship will change next year, though, remains to be seen. The upcoming 2023 season is the first where Fields and Love will have an opportunity to get head-to-head as the starting quarterbacks of rival teams. Friendship — and agent ties — may keep them close regardless, but the Bears and Packers rivalry has been known to get contentious and could lead to them being less ‘buddy-buddy’ in the future.
Justin Fields Planning Pre-Camp Training With WRs
After wrapping minicamp last week, the Bears are now scheduled to have about five weeks off until the official start of 2023 training camp on July 25. Fields, however, says he is planning to assemble his wide receivers, tight ends and running backs for a few more days of work before then to ensure the offense is on the same page together.
Chemistry is going to be one of the most important factors for Fields and his weapons heading into the 2023 season. He and Darnell Mooney are in sync from spending the past two seasons together, but there is still work to do with several of the new guys, such as D.J. Moore, Chase Claypool (who missed the final three weeks of offseason workouts with an injury) and fourth-round rookie Tyler Scott.
“I just think that everyone is buying in, even more than last year,” Fields said. “For me, I’ve definitely grown as a leader. Even with all the new guys coming in, they’ve made it easy, they’ve bought into our control here and just competing day in and day out and really just having that championship mindset. We’re all working toward the same goal, all working toward getting better, and I think we’ve just got to take it a day at a time.”
Justin Fields ‘Taking Ownership’ of Bears Offense
The Bears have done a fine job over the past several months building up a better offense around Fields. In addition to finding new receiving weapons — including former Packers tight end Robert Tonyan Jr. — they have also added two more starters to their offensive line in Nate Davis and first-round rookie Darnell Wright and revamped their backfield, adding D’Onta Foreman, Roschon Johnson and Travis Homer alongside Khalil Herbert to account for the loss of David Montgomery in free agency.
Whether those weapons add to up greater success, though, largely hinges on Fields. He flashed some prolific passing ability in bursts during the 2022 season but finished the year largely still in questionable territory as a passer, particularly in terms of his short- and intermediate-pass accuracy. Fortunately, most of the insider reports coming out of Halas Hall this summer suggest Fields has done the work to position himself for a leap.
“The people I’ve spoken to out of Chicago say that Justin Fields is ‘slingin’ it’ this offseason and that he’s had a nice command of the Bears offense,” NFL insider Jeremy Fowler said on ESPN during the weekend. “He’s changing plays at the line of scrimmage and feels good about taking ownership of things.”
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