Is the disrespect for Justin Fields from the national media getting out of hand?
In 2021, the Chicago Bears went 6-11, prompting many major media outlets such as ESPN, Fox Sports, and NBC Sports to give predominantly negative coverage of Justin Fields and the Bears.
Even firing former General Manager Ryan Pace as well as Head Coach Matt Nagy wasn’t enough to quiet analysts like Dan Orlovsky and Chris Simms. And former Bears coach Mike Martz had doubts about Fields and the Chicago Bears' ability to win.
The animosity Justin Fields had to face began all the way from before the NFL draft. During his draft process, analyst and former NFL quarterback Chris Simms said on his podcast UNBUTTUNED / NBC Sports, talked about how much better Texas A&M quarterback Kellen Mond was than Fields, “He’s (Mond) a machine...Just as a pure thrower”. On August 30, the Minnesota Vikings, the team who drafted Mond announced that they were waiving him after he threw for only five yards on two completions.
Adding insult to injury, another former NFL quarterback and current analyst at ESPN Dan Orlovsky mentioned on both TV and social media how the Bears don't have enough talent to surround Fields to set him up for success.
Orlovsky repetitively minimizes the talent of players like Darnell Mooney, as “just a fifth-rounder" or “Mooney is a good player (but) he isn’t a number two as of yet”. Proving Orlovsky wrong, Mooney was in the top 20 in receiving yards last season.
The former Bears offensive coordinator Martz went on “The 33rd Team” on YouTube and criticized both Fields and his teammates saying, “(Fields) makes a lot of mistakes and is not particularly accurate at times... and he’s on a horrendous team. They just don’t have anybody there”. That’s a lot of negative speculations coming at Fields and the organization during the camp season when no football games have actually been played yet.
Conversely, the perception of some others in the national media of Fields and Chicago Bears leans towards the positive end. The Bears won three straight games in preseason and Fields recorded the highest QBR in the NFC, 133.1, second most in the entire NFL behind only Patrick Mahomes. Recently Dan Orlovsky, who had little to no positive things to say about the Bears before, tweeted a video of one of Fields’ touchdown passes in his preseason game and praised both Fields and the Bears' offense as a whole. It will be interesting to see how the Bears will look this season and whether they can bring positive reviews from the national media.
