Getty Justin Fields has been encouraged to ask for a trade from the Chicago Bears if Matt Nagy sticks around.
It seems multiple people think Chicago Bears rookie quarterback Justin Fields should try to force his way out of the Windy City just a month into his first season in the league.
All it apparently took was a disastrous debut — and a head coach who has yet to prove himself capable of either developing young quarterbacks or creating an effective offensive scheme. Fans lit social media up in response to Bears head coach Matt Nagy’s game plan for Fields in the rookie QB’s debut last weekend against the Cleveland Browns.
But fans weren’t the only ones upset. Nearly every major sports channel featured a segment on whether Nagy is capable of coaching in this league, and while the Bears coach was absolutely lambasted by analysts and former players, some have a clear message for Fields: Get out if you can.
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Dan Orlovsky: Fields Should ‘Try to Get Out’
Fields completed 6 of 20 passes for 68 yards against the Browns in his first start, and Nagy was widely criticized for his insistence on keeping Fields in the pocket with five-man protection and an offensive line that is beyond suspect.
Nagy utilized very few rollouts, screens, designed QB runs or bootlegs for his mobile young signal-caller, and one of his harshest critics, former NFL quarterback and current ESPN analyst Dan Orlovsky, called for Nagy to lose his job immediately. A few days later, on “First Take,” Orlovsky encouraged Fields to seek a trade if Nagy is going to continue to be employed by the franchise.
“If Matt Nagy is going to continue to be the head coach of the Chicago Bears and really the steward of Justin Fields’ career moving forward, then Justin Fields should absolutely try to get out,” Orlovsky said on September 30. He’s not alone in his thinking.
.@danorlovsky7 thinks Justin Fields should force his way out of Chicago if the Bears don’t get rid of Matt Nagy 😳
“Justin Fields should absolutely try to get out!”
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Analyst: Young QBs Should Exert Themselves More
In his September 29 column, Sports Illustrated’s Conor Orr made the case for young quarterbacks — even rookies who just entered the league — to demand trades.
Here’s his logic, and why he thinks this should apply to the latest crop of rookie QBs in particular:
These must be heady times for Fields, who got a chaotic taste of the NFL from an on-field perspective and is now seeing its business machinations first hand. Does what happened this week instill confidence? If it doesn’t, Fields shouldn’t be shy about having raw and honest conversations of his own. In fact, no rookie quarterback should. After watching Fields flounder this week, after watching Zach Wilson toss four picks against the Patriots, after watching Trevor Lawrence try and sling his way through a Madden ’08 offense, it became clear that young quarterbacks should begin to exercise the kind of nomadic powers their veteran counterparts have. Simply put: If they feel like the ship they’re on is really headed in the right direction, they’ll put their heads down and endure. If they feel like it’s sinking, they should be more inclined to request permission to seek a trade before their careers are irreparably damaged.
Orr then made his case for why bad coaches should be catalysts for rookie QBs to leave:
Quarterbacks who wait for the organization to catch up to their skills—as opposed to finding an organization that can already accentuate them—seriously increases the risk of their career washing out before it has the chance to begin. A player has little control over where and when they are drafted, and yet we all unconsciously label them busts when the situation does not work out. In many cases it was not a deficient player, but a coach or general manager unwilling to provide the right system or attain the right complementary personnel….Fields can start to look at how the rest of the league has worked forever before it’s too late. Coaches almost always have a chance to move on and coach elsewhere, even after sinking a rookie passer. Rookies who underperform high expectations do not. If they do, they are almost permanently relegated to a depth chart basement somewhere.
Look, it’s far too rash to talk trades after just one start. After one season, however? That’s a different story. Few think Nagy deserves that much. The Bears have not fired a head coach during the regular season since the franchise was born in 1920, but if they don’t see massive improvements soon and Nagy manages to still have a job at season’s end, things could get pretty interesting in Chicago. And not in a good way.
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