Bears' big offseason thing: Choose a starting QB & embrace the patience
Yahoo Sports' Jason Fitz looks at the one big thing for Chicago's offseason - centered around the decision whether or not to keep Justin Fields or select a quarterback with the 1st overall pick in the NFL draft.
Video Transcript
JASON FITZ: The Super Bowl is in the rear-view mirror. And that means it's time to look ahead to one big thing facing the Chicago Bears this offseason. Now, the answer to this is easy. It's the quarterback position. But it's a nuanced conversation. While everybody is obsessed with whether or not they'll decide to keep Justin Fields and see if he can grow into a superstar quarterback or restart the quarterback contract clock by selecting the best overall quarterback in their minds with the top overall pick, sure, that's part of this.
I fully believe that Fields is going to play somewhere else and that the Bears are going to select a quarterback at the top of the draft. That being said, the interesting part of this is it's not a complete overhaul. Usually when you're picking first overall in the draft in a situation like this, there's a new head coach, a new GM making the choice of a new quarterback. And they all roll into town together as the unified savior that will make everything better. That's not the route Chicago chose to take.
So now you have the pressure of essentially a lame duck coach, maybe a lame duck GM, all trying to draft a quarterback at the top of the draft and then get immediate enough results that they keep their jobs. It's an unenviable position because there's usually, when you're not talking about CJ Stroud, a growth curve for any young quarterback. I'm not sure the Bears are in a position where they can be patient through that growth curve though, because there are too many people relying on immediate results to save their jobs. I think the one big thing facing Chicago isn't just the quarterback. It's how do you reset the tone around the entire organization to embrace that quarterback and embrace the patience that that may take with whoever they pick.
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