Justin Fields on Week 11 loss to Lions: ‘We should’ve won that game’

Justin Fields perfectly summed up the Chicago Bears’ 31-26 Week 11 loss to the Detroit Lions.

“If I’m keeping it real with y’all, we should’ve won that game.”

Yes, Justin, you should’ve won that game.

Fields played well enough in his return from a dislocated right thumb, an injury that kept him sidelined for four weeks, for the Bears to win the game. He completed 16 of 23 passes for 169 yards and a touchdown. He ran for 104 yards. He was fantastic and looked every bit the part of a franchise quarterback that a team can center its rebuild around.

Yet, the Bears lost a game in which they had a 12-point lead with just over four minutes left in the fourth quarter.

Justin Fields isn’t responsible for the blown coverage that allowed Lions wide receiver Jameson Williams to snag a 32-yard touchdown, the first of the two late-fourth-quarter scores that gave Detroit the win. Fields wasn’t charged with tackling running backs Jahmyr Gibbs and David Montgomery, the latter of which pile drove his way to the game-winning one-yard touchdown run.

Fields isn’t calling plays on offense. If he was, you can bet he would’ve gone for the Lions’ throat instead of kicking a field goal with 4:15 left to play to give the Bears that 12-point lead … a decision that made a two-score lead a, uh, two-score lead. Dumb!

Bears receiver DJ Moore, who scored on a perfectly placed 39-yard pass from Fields, praised his quarterback for his performance after a four-week layoff.

“He did good,” Moore said. “Managed everything well, commanded the huddle well, and he put us in the best possible position to win, so that’s what you want out of our starting quarterback.”

Yep. Justin Fields did his job. He put the Bears in position to win their second game in a row for the first time this season. He led Chicago to what should’ve been an insurmountable lead and its first division victory in an eternity. But Chicago lost. And anytime an NFL team loses, the blame game starts with the quarterback.

Sports media’s talking heads will continue debating whether Fields is the right guy for the Bears, who continue to inch closer to the first overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft. They’ll suggest Caleb Williams or Drake Maye should be QB-next. And those suggestions will be as ridiculous as Matt Eberflus’ vanilla prevent defense when the game was on the line Sunday.

Don’t be that guy. Don’t blame Justin Fields for Sunday’s loss.

The Chicago Bears have a long way to go before they will be a consistent team, one that can be counted on to win games like Sunday’s. One thing is certain, though: they have the right leader at quarterback to get them there.

“We know who we are, we know what kind of team we are, and we’ve just got to be better,” Fields said. “We’ve just got to finish. And like I said, when those big moments happen, when we need those big plays, we’ve got to execute.”

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