A Few Kind Words

The last Chicago Bears’ player to impress me as much as quarterback Justin Fields? Alex Brown and Charles “Peanut” Tillman, maybe, for being thoughtful and willing to address the media, no matter the final score of the game that day. But Brown and Tillman were defenders, willing to inflict pain on the opponents in order to stop them. I’m at that point in life where squirrels refer to me as “The Human Who Slows Down to Give Us a Chance to Cross the Street.” Giving or receiving pain is something I want to avoid whenever possible. Which brings me back to Fields. Oh, he can dish out the pain, but it’s more in the form of embarrassment and humiliation at escaping capture. Think Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam, only Fields is Bugs with a considerably bigger vocabulary, Doc. Like Brown and Tillman, he faces the media, regardless. Unfortunately, these days it’s almost always after a loss. I liked Fields from the moment he skipped out on celebrating being drafted so he could start familiarizing himself with the Bears’ playbook. Granted, it hasn’t changed since being copied off that cave wall in France, but Fields showed he was serious about success. See Cade McNown for the total opposite. The Bears stink right now, losing seven in a row and counting, but their quarterback has been a revelation with his arm a well as his feet. The Bears’ Way is to treat the forward pass as heresy against George Halas, so to see Fields with fifteen touchdown passes is impressive, doubly so given that he has no wide receivers to speak of. And the running. A thousand yards with eight touchdowns. The man jukes, he slithers, he sidesteps, whatever it takes to gain yardage. I keep thinking Fran Tarkenton, only Tarkenton never rushed for more than 376 yards in a season. But the comparison holds in that Tarkenton, like Fields is now, played for some awful Minnesota teams early in his career. In time, the Vikings and Giants and then the Vikings again learned how to protect their most valuable asset. With luck, lots and lots of luck because we’re talking the McCaskeys here, the Bears will start doing the same, and fast. Because, once they do, Sunday afternoons in autumn could get really interesting around here.