When Justin Fields unfollowed the Chicago Bears on Instagram mere days ago, it wasn’t the best look. Spin it any way you want, it seemed like the young quarterback was sending some kind of message to everyone that he either knew he was out, or wanted to be out, or was making some small, passive-aggressive gesture.
Now we have an official explanation from Fields… aaaaaand it’s pretty lame.
Fields mostly presented himself well in the interview with the St. Brown bros. Other than the humorous analogy to the dating and/or diving into IG DMs scene, he said he unfollowed the Bears and the main NFL account because he’s “about to go on vacation” and doesn’t want to see football on his timeline.
Look man. Who am I to tell a professional athlete what to do, how to handle his business, how to manage his time, and all that? These guys put their bodies through hell for our entertainment, help captivate a massive through a very, very long offseason, and are probably always dealing with some sort of injury, reported or not. At the same time, they get paid millions upon millions of dollars to do what they do, and part of the deal is taking public criticism.
ESPN’s Mike Greenberg seems to think the Steelers would be Super Bowl contenders with Fields as their new QB, and there’s a lot of buzz about him going to Atlanta, too.
Hard for me to go that far, even as a personal fan of Fields. I don’t think what’s happened (or hasn’t happened) in Chicago is 100% on him. All that said, and with all the support Fields has in the court of public opinion regarding his viability as a starting NFL QB, I’m still coming away from his clarifying remarks about unfollowing the Bears and the NFL a little like, “Huh??”
No offense, JFF 2.0, but you’ve been on the NFL version of vacation for something like six weeks. In part because you aren’t the quarterback the Bears hoped they were trading up to draft a few years ago or so. Again, I like Fields, and I’m not a “WINS ARE A QB STAT” purist. Nevertheless, a 10-28 record across three seasons ain’t great.
You would hope that Fields has taken his six weeks away since the regular-season finale to dissect his roller-coaster 2023 season, study his mistakes and many turned-down completions, and try to get right for his prospective next team. Based on the mentality he’s projecting here, though, I wouldn’t count on it.
Here’s the other big thing about this unfollowing the Bears on IG situation. Can’t you simply mute somebody on Instagram instead of unfollowing them? Yes. Yes you can. And no one would know about it if you did. So yeah, Justin, this is why people take social media seriously.
There was a far better solution to not wanting to see all the NFL-related noise, if you hadn’t unplugged from it at all over the past six weeks when your team was sitting on the couch for the playoffs. The optics would’ve been far better had you just gone down the “mute” path. And yet, you went with the big, fat “Unfollow.” Also, are the Bears posting trade rumors on their official Instagram account? Of course not…
That’s why I have a hard time buying, too, that Fields really wants to stay in the Windy City.
At least Fields addressed the social media controversy he created, but I haven’t seen him get a lot of heat. To me, it’s just another perplexing twist to the bizarre saga that is Justin Fields’ NFL career. None of us will have any clarity until he goes somewhere else. Only then will we know if he was, in fact, more to blame for Chicago’s offensive ineptitude than many of us currently believe.
It’ll reportedly take a historic offer for the Bears to move out of the No. 1 overall pick in this year’s draft. Caleb Williams is a no-brainer selection at that spot. He’s cheaper than Fields in the coming years and has more upside, particularly as a passer. All the rest is the noise that Fields is trying to get away from, yet in his approach to doing so, he’s only added to the irksome cacophony.
