Jim O'Donnell: The truth could set Justin Fields free

IN A PERFECT SPORTS MEDIA WORLD, Justin Fields would shed his muzzle, step up to the microphones at Halas Hall and let loose an unabridged summary of his three seasons in NFL quarterback hell. I wish he would say this:

“I have been raised as an individual of faith, but this has been a nightmare beyond the patience of Job. I came in not being accustomed to losing football games. Now my NFL apprenticeship has been compromised by ownership that doesn't know how to win and an unripened offensive coordinator who has been paid to learn on the job and week after week tries to prove quite clumsily that he's the most clever coach in the stadium. Losing meaningful football games is a way of life with the Chicago Bears,” he might say.

“For all concerned, moving forward, God bless the McCaskeys and Pat Ryan but let me move on. On to a team that is positioned to win, that needs a capable young quarterback who can help them win and where all of this nonsense that has been pounded into my overworked football brain for the last three years can drift off into the realm of clutter and worthlessness where it belongs.”

That’s what I’d love to hear him say.

Harrumph, harrumph, harrumph.

ODDS OF THAT HAPPENING?

Equal to Donald Trump and family enjoying the Christmas holiday skiing with members of the Colorado Supreme Court.

The closest Fields has come to letting the public know what's really going on behind his game face came way back in Week 3 – Sept. 20 – when he was asked why he plays “so robotically.”

His response:

“You know, could be the coaching, I think. At the end of the day, they are doing their job when they are giving me what to look at. But at the end of the day, I can't be thinking about that when the game comes. I prepare myself throughout the week and then when the game comes, it's time to play free at that point.”

The free-wheeling Fields of that moment added: “My goal this week is just to ... go out there and play football how I know to play football. That includes thinking less and just going out there and playing off of instincts rather than so much info in my head, data in my head.”

FIELDS AND THE BEARS WENT OUT the following week and got pounded at Kansas City 41-10. Their stumble out of the gate reached 0-4 before the current 5-5 surge that stuttered so badly in the fourth quarter at Cleveland last Sunday.

That loss on Lake Erie hardly belongs to Fields. He had some superb throws dropped, ran predictably poltroon-ish plays as directed by the unfortunate Luke Getsy and even tossed a textbook Hail Mary at the end that the well-paid hands of Darnell Mooney were too overwhelmed to hang on to.

Anyone reading mere statistics about the three impossible seasons of Fields as a Bear overlooks enormously mitigating factors.

It's not too hard for the more rational sports follower to project that somewhere in the NFL – in a port with micro-insight and vision far beyond the ken of Lake Forest -- there is a football ops department dying to buy cheap on Fields straight ahead.

DECEMBER THOUGHTS ON THE BEARS NO. 1:

--- In two seasons as “The Man” at Ohio State, Fields was 1-0 vs. Michigan, 1-1 against Clemson, 0-1 vs. Alabama and 18-0 against the rest of the world. That strongly suggests – if properly tutored and allowed to blend system and instincts -- both a capacity to close victories and a competitively superior will to win.

Then he met Matt Nagy and Bill Lazor and Matt Eberflus and the thoroughly dismissible Getsy, who should be cleaning out his Halas Hall office no later than 9:03 a.m., Monday, Jan. 8.

--- Including Fields, from the 2021 NFL draft to date, nine QBs have been taken in the first round. Results-based categorization of the other eight in relation to Fields with the Bears:

There's not yet a proven breakout superstar in the bunch. Why then would there possibly be any coherent projection that either Caleb Williams or Drake Maye would require any less an incubation period?

OLD RACE-TRACKERS WILL DRAW the analogy of the stakes-caliber young thoroughbred who has been underperforming because he's been managed by the wrong trainer.

Move the colt into more capable hands and the move-up could be astounding.

And once again, Lake Forest and faith-challenged McCaskey Bears fans will be left with an empty quarterback barn.

But an escape from an NFL quarterback hell.

Jim O'Donnell's Sports and Media column appears each week on Sunday and Thursday. Reach him at jimodonnelldh@yahoo.com. All communications may be considered for publication.