In the Chicago Bears‘ first preseason game on Saturday, one major thing was evident: Justin Fields is the real deal.
Besides the play of Fields though, another clear takeaway was the fact that the guys playing in front of him were missing some pieces. The Bears’ offensive line didn’t have starters Teven Jenkins, James Daniels or Germain Ifedi.
I’m not sure if there has ever been more excitement for a rookie quarterback to make his first start than there was for Justin Fields going into his Chicago Bears debut.
I’ll admit, his first couple series looked rocky, but the key takeaway from those series was that the issues were not Justin’s fault. His supporting cast didn’t settle in and as a result, there were a lot of early miscues which cut drives short.
With their season now focused on learning and development, the final two months of the 2020 season were going to be important for players like right-hander Adbert Alzolay. But the latest news was not what the Cubs wanted to hear.
The Cubs put Alzolay on the 10-day injured list on Saturday with a left hamstring strain he suffered in Friday’s loss to the Marlins. The Cubs’ starter felt the discomfort in the second inning and after throwing a pitch, he called for the team’s training staff.
While Alzolay ran the bases in the half inning prior to him getting injured, manager David Ross says the injury occurred while he was pitching. The team is calling Alzolay’s hamstring strain mild, but there is no timeline line for his return to the team’s rotation at this point.
Alzolay’s injury is a disappointing event in what is a big season for both him and the Cubs. The right-hander has had some ups-and-downs this season, but has shown flashes of success throughout. He is 4-13 with a 5.16 ERA this season.
The team recalled right-hander Trevor Megill from Triple-A to take Alzolay’s place on the 26-man roster.
Justin Fields rolled right, looked back across the field and saw Jesse James with no one around him. The Bears’ rookie quarterback stopped and flicked the ball 24 yards in the air toward the tight end, who was so open when he caught the ball that he moonwalked six yards into the end zone.
Bears fans, watching a game at Soldier Field for the first time since the end of the 2019 season, roared with approval at the 30-yard touchdown.
So did LeBron James.
“Justin Fields is so SPECIAL man!!” the Lakers star tweeted a minute later. “Keep going young [king].”
The world’s greatest basketball player — a lifelong fan of Ohio State, where Fields shined before the Bears drafted him — used a crown emoji instead of the word king. Saturday’s exhibition game wasn’t a coronation — it was merely a 20-13 exhibition win against the Dolphins at Soldier Field. But Fields made the Bears relevant on a live NFL Network broadcast that was only put in place because of national interest in the young quarterback.
It was enough to dream on — even if it was against the Dolphins’ second- and third-stringers.
The touchdown pass will lead the Fields highlight reel, followed closely by the nine-yard touchdown run in which Fields looked left, saw his tight end fall down, stepped behind rushing linebacker Tyshun Render like a boxer avoiding a punch and sprinted left for a score.
What will be forgotten — but shouldn’t — is his struggles up to that point. In Fields’ first nine plays at quarterback, the Bears gained a total of one yard.
Fields’ first drive was short-circuited by back-to-back false start penalties — welcome to the Bears, kid — and his second featured three-straight incompletions.
The third possession was borderline disastrous. On first down, center Sam Mustipher snapped a ground ball to Fields for a loss of two. After Fields threw an incompletion, he decided to roll left on third-and-12. Rather than run out of bounds, Fields ran toward cornerback Nik Needham and, just before he was hit, turned his back. Fields fumbled. The Bears were lucky it rolled out of bounds. The play was similar to the Clemson hit that Fields took in the national semifinal and lamented during training camp. He vowed not to take a hit like that again.
When the Bears got the ball back at their own 23 with 45 seconds left in the first half, they decided to let Fields throw against a prevent defense. That did the trick to get him unlocked. After getting, alarmingly, the Bears’ first first down of the game, Fields marched a total of 42 yards over seven plays to set up a 53-yard Cairo Santos field goal.
That momentum lasted throughout the halftime break. It took Fields eight plays to go 77 yards and score to start the second half — a drive capped by his touchdown run. The next drive — which went 70 yards over seven plays — ended in his touchdown pass to Jesse James,
His final drive began at the Bears’ 2-yard line. It ended three plays and eight yards later, 14 seconds into the fourth quarter. Fields sat down after completing 14-of-20 passes for 142 yards and running five times for 33 yards.
Andy Dalton, whom coach Matt Nagy anointed the starter months ago, was uninspiring. He completed 2-of-4 passes for 18 yards and handed off twice during two possessions.
Fields took the Field early in the second quarter after DeAndre Houston-Carson intercepted Tua Tagovailoa’s pass intended for former Bears tight end Adam Shaheen at the 1. Bears fans welcomed Fields with a standing ovation. Two plays later, as the Bears walked to the line of scrimmage on third down, they chanted “Let’s go, Feeee-ulds!” By the end,
After replacing Fields, third-stringer Nick Foles was booed after his second play and again after his third — both incompletions — by fans who didn’t have the chance to do so last year.
The Bears trailed 13-0 in the second quarter but scored the game’s final 20 points.
Good thing for Bears coach Matt Nagy that he already declared his Week 1 starter two months ago. Otherwise, it’d be awfully stressful trying to figure out what to do with rookie Justin Fields after a sensational preseason debut in which ran and threw all over the place. And made football fun again in Chicago.
Picture a delay-of-game flag on the first play of the opener as he keeps wrestling with whether it should be Fields or Andy Dalton.
But Nagy says he’ll stick with Dalton regardless of Fields completing 14 of 20 passes for 142 yards and a touchdown pass and racing for an 8-yard score against the Dolphins. He stumbled by being a little too loose with ball security on a scramble and firing a near-interception over the middle, but there was more than enough good to suggest he could be ready by Sept. 12 against the Rams.
And the truth is, the Bears need him to be. Given their ongoing offensive line problems, escaping from a collapsing pocket is a critical part of the job description of Bears starting quarterback. Fields has that ability. It’s hard to see how Dalton can function in that setting.
Fields’ touchdown run with 9:45 left in the third quarter was the materialization of everything the Bears imagined when they traded up to draft him No. 11 overall. As the blocking faltered on his blindside, Fields scanned the secondary right to left, sensed the pressure and calmly maneuvered through it — rather than panic and run away from it — for a clear path to the end zone.
Getting a glimpse of that talent and then waiting indefinitely to see it in a real game is going to be excruciating. All the excitement of finally seeing world-class athleticism at quarterback for the Bears is doused by the reality that Nagy won’t reconsider. With nearly a month for Fields to keep progressing, it’s not even on the table for him to start the opener.
The better Fields performs, the more it feels like the Bears are just waiting for waiting’s sake.
The Bears are rushing to help their ailing offensive line and will turn to 17-year veteran tackle Jason Peters. Peters’ agency, Elite Loyalty Sports, tweeted Saturday that he agreed to terms.
The Bears faced the Dolphins in a preseason game without three presumptive starters: left tackle Teven Jenkins, right tackle Germain Ifedi and right guard James Daniels. Jenkins, the team’s second-round pick, has missed all of training camp with a back injury. His last Pro Bowl season was 2016.
Peters was a fixture on the Eagles’ 2017 championship team, which featured current Bear Nick Foles at quarterback.
Peters made it into the league with the Bills in 2004 as an undrafted free agent out of Arkansas.
Elijah Wilkinson is the Bears’ starting left tackle for now, but most of his experience has been on the right side.
Peters is a nine-time Pro Bowler, but is 39 years old. He started eight games for the Eagles as he battled injuries last season.
Alex Caruso has 27 career playoff games under his belt, a Finals appearance with the Los Angeles Lakers in the 2019-20 season, and one huge diamond-laced championship ring.
The guard has kissed the Larry O’Brien Trophy, been mentored by a guy named LeBron, and if he could bring a snack to the arena it would likely be carried in a dented lunch pail.
So the last thing Caruso needs is a hype man.
Yet, he had one on Friday.
“He brings a winning mentality to the team first and foremost as a champion, and he also brings that toughness, that grit, and he’s going to do all the little things,” new Bulls guard Lonzo Ball said of what Caruso will also bring to the roster. “AC is the perfect teammate. Anybody would love to play with him. He’s going to put the team first and I know he’s definitely going to be appreciated in Chicago.”
An appreciation that will likely start with the Bulls coaching staff.
When the bell rang for the start of free agency less than two weeks ago, Ball to the Bulls was the worst-kept secret in the league the past few seasons. Caruso also coming to the Bulls? That came from nowhere.
Not because he wasn’t worthy of the four-year, $37 million deal from his new team, but because the thought was the Lakers would try and keep their glue guy.
Fortunately for the Bulls, Los Angeles was building in a different direction, adding Russell Westbrook and then having to go on the cheap to build around their Big Three.
That left the Bulls in the running, and having the perfect role for the combo guard, who thrives in backcourt defense and in disrupting the pick-and-role. Tough the Bulls needed, and tough they are getting.
“Toughness to me I think is just doing the right thing every time,” Caruso said in a Zoom call with the media, when describing his mentality “Whatever your job is on any given play for basketball that is where I am taking this question. Just doing whatever your job is on each individual play and a lot of times for me the last couple of years it’s been guarding really good players and a lot of times you have to play physical, play a little dirty to try to slow guys down because this league is filled with killers, filled with guys that are really good offensive players.
“Describing myself with toughness? I think it’s just a lot of resilience. I have a naive mindset where I always believe I am going to get the job done. That’s kind of carried me to … whether that is correct or not, I lose a lot of times and failure is part of the process, but that mindset has helped me get to where I am today.”
Where he’ll be come late September is hopefully at the Advocate Center, giving the Bulls bench a disruptive defender in the rotation.
More importantly, maybe, just maybe a mindset that will rub off on some current Bulls guards.
Ball knows Caruso well from their days together with the Lakers, but Coby White and Zach LaVine could each use some of the Caruso mentality on the defensive end.
If LaVine can add a “little dirty” to the skillset he already possesses? Max contract talk may suddenly sound much more reasonable.
Either way, Caruso won’t be changing his game anytime soon. If teammates want to mimic it, well, he’s all in on that mentality.
“That’s something you can control is your effort and your energy and playing defense, and for me that’s always been a catalyst for my game,” Caruso said. “It provides energy to the team, provides energy for the game, and usually is positive.”
The Bud Billiken Parade, a beloved end of summer and back-to-school tradition, returned to the South Side Saturday after one-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Thousands of Black Chicagoans of all ages lined the shortened parade route through Bronzeville to watch the city’s youth put their talents on display. Performers included several South Side dance teams and high school bands.
Adults tried to beat the summer heat by lounging in lawn chairs under shady trees, umbrellas and tents, while children slurped their snow cones out of styrofoam cups.
Bubbles and puffs of Charcoal-scented smoke clouded the air, while the sound of drums and music echoed down the streets.
“For me, it’s just the music, the bands, the groove,” Stephanie Hill said as she bounced to the beat. “… [Some people] might be from 79th [street], they might be from 87th, from 51st — we don’t know each other. We all are here to have a good time. That’s what I like.”
Residents gather Saturday in Bronzeville for the Bud Billiken Parade.Pat Nabong/Sun-Times
The Bud Billiken Parade, which is thought to be the oldest and largest African American parade in the nation, celebrated its 92nd year Saturday. It’s a must-attend event for many Black Chicagoans, who have passed the tradition down from generation to generation.
“I’ve been coming here since I was a baby, and I just keep the family tradition going,” Tiny Reed said. “This means a lot to me.”
While everyone rejoiced for the return of the parade after the pandemic canceled it last year, some people were disappointed in the city’s decision to shorten the route to just 10 blocks.
“They cut it 10 blocks, but they didn’t cut Lollapalooza,” Reed said. “They let it go for (four) damn days.”
Reed was among the groups who used paper streamers or string to rope off their space, out of an abundance of caution for the raging Delta variant. She said they staked out their spot at 5 a.m.
Sky forward Candace Parker was named the grand marshal of this year’s parade and festival. She joins a star-studded list of other grand marshals, which includes President Barack Obama, Oprah Winfrey, Chance the Rapper and Muhammad Ali.
A dancer performs at the Bud Billiken Parade Saturday morning. Pat Nabong/Sun-Times
The Bud Billiken Parade takes place Saturday morning.Pat Nabong/Sun-Times
First Lady M.K. Pritzker, Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton march in the Bud Billiken Parade Saturday morning.Pat Nabong/Sun-Times
Mayor Lori Lightfoot speaks to residents Saturday at the Bud Billiken Parade. Pat Nabong/Sun-Times
Check soon back for more.
Trading up in the first round of the 2021 NFL Draft to pick no. 11 could only mean one thing. The Chicago Bears were about to land their franchise quarterback.
This was a moment long overdue for Bears fans, who had been suffering in quarterback purgatory for far too long.
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