LAKE FOREST, Ill. — On Thursday, Bears offensive coordinator Luke Getsy sat behind the same team-branded table on the same dais in the same room that Marc Trestman, Aaron Kromer, Adam Gase, Dowell Loggains, Matt Nagy and Bill Lazor once did.
There are some differences. The ad and team logo on the wall behind it are different. There have been changes to the media relations staff. Neither Trestman nor Nagy lined up pop cans in front of him as a running joke for the media room as Getsy does.
But the topic has been and always will be the same until proven otherwise: What the heck is going on with the quarterback?
The Bears have lost 12 games in a row dating to last season. Justin Fields isn’t playing well. His numbers reflect that. He should be frustrated. He should have some grievances to air. Everyone should.
“Relationship is the key to success,” Getsy said. “I think if you don’t establish that at the beginning and let that trust grow, then times that appear to be chaotic to you (the media) aren’t really chaotic to us. And I think there’s a belief.
“There’s a belief in the process and the philosophy and what coach (Matt Eberflus) is trying to get done, what (general manager Ryan Poles is) trying to get done, what we’re trying to get done on offense. There is a confidence in that room that, I guess, to your world would be shocked. And we believe in it and we stick together, and there’s a brotherhood that we trust more than anything else.”
The names and faces have changed in the media room over the years. But some of us remain. And we’ve heard all of this before.
We’ve heard Trestman back Jay Cutler — even praise his intelligence and the conversations they had about string theory and dimensions (yes, that happened) — until he benched him for Jimmy Clausen.
We heard Nagy describe the close relationship he had with Mitch Trubisky until he benched him for Nick Foles and then benched himself as the Bears’ play caller for Lazor — twice.
We’ve heard Bears offensive coordinators talk about scaling things back and simplifying things so their quarterbacks and their offense can play faster.
We’ve heard head coaches defend the work of their respective coordinators despite reasons to think otherwise, from Trestman sticking with Kromer to Nagy ultimately firing Mark Helfrich after two seasons.
And we’ve seen players wear T-shirts in the locker room that said “bunker down” on the front and “no noise” on the back in an effort to rally around each other amid a media frenzy.
GO DEEPER
Who can get Bears out of this mess? The options aren’t promising
So it wasn’t surprising that Fields said what he said Wednesday at Halas Hall about his overthinking on the field and the Bears’ coaching place in it. He then tried to walk back his comments later in the locker room after practice.
But it was too late.
You can’t take comments like that back.
Getsy said Fields came to him after the quarterback’s second interaction with the media Wednesday. But now it’s time to take a page out of Trubisky’s book and turn off all the TVs in Halas Hall because this isn’t going away anytime soon. (Yes, I know that was a tongue-in-cheek comment by Trubisky.)
This is what the Bears are.
This is what the Bears do.
“I can’t be more clear than this: No one in our entire building, none of our coaches see Justin as a finger pointer at all,” Poles said Thursday. “That kid is always taking ownership of anything that has happened on the field. He takes it head-on. He works, he grinds, he puts his head down, he works with his teammates, he works with his coaches to find solutions. Really, everything is trying to figure out what’s going on.
“In my opinion, you got a young quarterback trying to figure it out. You have a guy who hasn’t had the cleanest start to his career who last year, with the roster, had to put the team on his back, do some unbelievable things athletically.
“Now, he gets talent around him and has to figure out and balance when to do those cool things athletically, when to lean on others, and that is sometimes a gray place to live in. That takes time. That takes time on task for him to take that next step and everyone is on board helping him get into that place for him to be successful.”
It’s only Week 3, which might be the craziest part of all this. There is ample time for Fields and Getsy to click. This can still be a successful season for them, Eberflus and Poles.
But if Fields fails as a quarterback, it’s not his fault — and it’s not Getsy’s. The blame shouldn’t be cast on Eberflus, Poles or their pairing. If Fields fails, it’s another organizational failure for a team that has a track record of ruining quarterbacks.
This is firing Lovie Smith after a 10-6 season. This is sticking Cutler with six offensive coordinators: Ron Turner, Mike Martz, Mike Tice, Trestman/Kromer, Gase and Loggains.
GO DEEPER
Justin Fields is unhappy, Alan Williams has resigned and the Bears are in disarray
This is firing general manager Phil Emery less than a year after allowing him to sign Cutler to a massive contract extension that included guaranteed money that carried over into the Ryan Pace era.
This is Pace trading up and drafting Trubisky without the blessing of head coach John Fox.
And this is allowing Pace and Nagy to trade up and draft Fields in 2021 only to fire both of them after Fields’ rookie season.
This is what the Bears are.
This is what the Bears do.
They find ways to ruin quarterbacks.
Only once under chairman George McCaskey’s leadership have three most important people in a football organization — the GM, the head coach and the quarterback — aligned as one. That was 2021 when Field was drafted.
But it was too late.
Too much damage was done in the years before the Fields selection — and more came after it.
It’s Nagy sitting Fields behind Foles and Andy Dalton for an entire training camp, only to start him in Week 3 against a talented Browns defense with a game plan in place that resulted in nine sacks and only six completed passes.
Then it’s firing those who drafted Fields and putting him through a rebuilding season under Poles that saw the Bears trade their best two players on defense.
It was an overdue teardown that needed to happen for the team. As Poles said, Fields “put the team on his back.” But he still had to learn a new offense under a new coordinator in his second season while throwing to receivers Equanimeous St. Brown, Dante Pettis, Byron Pringle and eventually Chase Claypool.
GO DEEPER
Why Bears QB Justin Fields’ coaching comments left our experts stunned
Fields has been sacked 101 times in less than three seasons.
This is what the Bears are.
This is what the Bears do.
This is chaos.
They don’t develop quarterbacks.
So it’s good to hear Fields speak up for himself. He should do it again after playing the Chiefs and throughout the season.
Fields could be next in line if his play doesn’t improve. And, at this point after 12 consecutive losses, it sounds as if he knows it.
(Photo: Michael Reaves / Getty Images)
“The Football 100,” the definitive ranking of the NFL’s best 100 players of all time, goes on sale this fall. Preorder it here.
