Hub Arkush: Agree or not, evidence suggest Justin Fields isn’t likely to start Week 1

We spent months leading up to the draft with most of you panicked they wouldn’t do all in their power to finally find their franchise quarterback. Just when that was looking near impossible, the Bears did.

Do all in their power that is. We’ll see if they got it right.

Now that effort has spawned the next big debate: when should Justin Fields be given the keys to the car?

It is intriguing because so many have apparently forgotten the biggest controversy of all that preceded the chatter about finding a new set of hands under center was should Ryan Pace and Matt Nagy be fired the day after the 2020 season ended?

Once it was clear that wasn’t gong to happen the next mantra became, “The only way they can keep their jobs now is by winning now, right now!”

It appears to be those same folks that are now propagating the idea Fields should be – even has to be – the Week 1 starter. Consequences be damned.

The problem is those two ideas – Pace and Nagy have to win right now and Fields has to start immediately – could very well be mutually exclusive.

To say today without prequalification that Fields should start on opening day is quite frankly pretty dumb.

But that doesn’t mean it’s wrong.

It’s been proven in the NFL a thousand times the surest way to screw up what is the most promising lead the Bears have had in years is to put Fields on the field too soon.

I have no issue with him starting the opener if he’s ready to compete and gives his team the best chance to win. But since he has yet to meet his teammates, stepped on a practice field, learned any of the playbook or terminology, had a single practice or thrown a single pass, how can that possibly be today?

It was interesting hearing an interview with Carolina Panthers head coach Matt Rhule on the Rich Eisen Show when he said in answer to why the Panthers passed on Fields, “I love those guys (Fields and Mac Jones), and I think that they’re going to be great NFL players.”

Then he added a but. “The hit rate on first round quarterbacks isn’t real high.”

It isn’t hard to count the number of first-round QBs that have failed because they weren’t given enough time to get ready, it just takes a long time.

Nagy made it clear the Bears will have a plan to make the right decision.

“The biggest thing that we’ve taken into this thing is there will be a plan with Justin and with Andy (Dalton) and with Nick (Foles) and with just how we go about this,” Nagy said. “I have had a bunch of discussions and talked through scenarios and as everybody has talked about, I went through that in 2017 (with Patrick Mahomes).

“So is it gonna be the same thing, I don’t know? But at least we have some type of blueprint to at least work off of.”

That blueprint was to have Mahomes sit for a year and learn behind Alex Smith, because the Chiefs were trying to “win now.”

Tom Brady and Drew Brees each waited a full year for first starts and Aaron Rodgers waited three.

Troy Aikman and Peyton Manning started right away and struggled through awful seasons before building Hall of Fame careers, while Ben Roethlisberger and Russell Wilson started almost immediately and took their teams to the playoffs as rookies.

History pretty overwhelmingly says QBs have a much better shot at success by watching and learning first, but there are rare exceptions and reasons to believe Fields can be one.

But history also tells us that even though he’s nowhere near as talented as Fields, Andy Dalton’s 142 career starts to Fields’ none give the Bears a better chance to “win now” by playing Dalton until he gives the Bears a reason not to, and Pace and Nagy have been clear he is the starter right now.

Then, of course, there’s the assumption Pace and Nagy do want to do all they can to keep their jobs.

It seems almost certain Dalton will be the Bears opening-day starter, and there is far more to argue it’s the right call than there is to suggest it isn’t.