LAKE FOREST — On third-and-9 from Chicago’s own 26-yard line and the Bears up 26-21 late in Sunday’s fourth quarter against the Lions, Justin Fields dropped back to pass.
Tracy Walker III was the boundary safety in two-high coverage, and he came down once he saw DJ Moore crossing from the right to the left portion of the field on a drag route. Once Fields recognized Walker come down, he knew where to go with the football.
To rookie wide receiver Tyler Scott, who beat the corner with a nice release off the line of scrimmage and got behind the Lions’ defensive back. As Scott was running and trying to gage the football’s flight pattern, the young receiver misjudged the ball and the pass fell incomplete.
A completed pass would’ve put the Bears at least inside the Lions’ 30-yard line with just under three minutes left on the clock. The Lions only had one timeout to stop the clock.
Instead, the Lions went on to take the lead with an 11-play, 73-yard touchdown drive and ultimately won the game, 31-26.
That misconnection could’ve easily left a permanent scar on Fields to not trust Scott in crucial moments going forward.
But that’s not how Fields is looking at his fellow teammate at all.
“One game is not going to define if I go back to him,” Fields said. “To be honest, with you, I don’t care if you keep dropping the ball because everybody, we have our own individual responsibility to help this team be successful. If the receiver’s open, I’m going to throw him the ball and if he drops it, it’s his responsibility to catch the ball. That’s his job. He gets paid to do that. I’m not losing faith in him one game, two games, however many games, I’m going to keep going back to him.
“He’s going to be a great receiver, he has a lot of room to grow and he’s talented even now. He’s made a lot of plays for us this year on offense, special teams. He’s a speedster. Not many DBs can keep up with him. That one game, whatever it was. He had a tough game but we’ve all had tough games. As a football player, you have tough games. I’ve had a lot of tough games. It does nothing but make me better, make him better. At the end of the day, he’s a hard worker. He’s not going to let one, two, three games define who he is as a player. I have full faith in Tyler. Everybody else does, too.”
Fields couldn’t have provided a better answer. Clearly, regardless of the result of one play, Fields won’t have any hesitation on going back to a teammate, which is exactly how a quarterback should operate.
This answer is just one of the many instances of Fields displaying exceptional leadership and how to answer a question during a press conference properly.
Fields being willing to go back to Scott on a potential deep ball during a crucial portion of the game is also important because it’s what Fields excels at.
“To be honest, I feel like deep balls, just in general, I feel like it’s what I do best, to be honest with you,” Fields said. “I think I throw the ball down the field exceptionally. It’s one of my strengths. I’ve been doing it since high school, college. I think it’s one thing that I do best and one thing that I think we’re going to keep doing and get to more.”
According to Pro Football Focus, Fields has the sixth-highest grade (94.7) on deep passes of 20 or more yards. He has completed 14 of 29 attempts for 371 yards and has thrown seven touchdowns and zero interceptions.
With six games remaining in the regular season, expect Fields to continue taking shots downfield and to do so while targeting Scott when the opportunity presents itself.
