What should the Bears do this offseason?

There is no position more important in North American sports than quarterback.

There is no team more tortured at the quarterback position than the Chicago Bears. Their all-time leader in passing yards is Jay Cutler. Mitch Trubisky, one of the worst top 2 picks in the NFL’s recent history, is fifth.

The Bears are inept at the most important thing, and kind of good at most of the other stuff, especially fielding strong defences. They’re the anti-Jesse Pinkman.

However this offseason, the Bears have a franchise-defining quandary on their hands.

They own the Carolina Panthers’ first round pick by virtue of a truly excellent trade that they made last year with the most impulsive, and perhaps the most outwardly dickish (it’s a low bar as well), owner in the sport, David Tepper.

That pick is currently slated to be the first overall pick, and the Panthers have a two- game lead over the next worst team with no indication that they’re going to win any more games as the season continues. The Panthers of 2023 are one of the least inspiring, least hopeful teams in recent memory.

The Bears also have their own pick, currently pick 7, going into the draft.

As it stands, they will have two top-10 picks.

In this draft there appear to be two high-end, if not generational, quarterback prospects: Caleb Williams out of USC and Drake Maye out of North Carolina.

They also have Justin Fields, who will be entering his fourth year in the NFL next season.

What that means, simply, is that it’s decision time for the Bears.

Do they pick up Fields’ fifth year option and then extend him? If they did that, they could trade their number 1 pick for a potentially large bounty to a quarterback needy team, move down to pick 3 or 4, possibly draft a tackle or a receiver at that pick then someone else at 7 and build around Justin Fields.

6 weeks ago, this wasn’t an option. Fields had an indifferent, at best, start to the year. He was reading defences like they were in Swahili, which is to say he wasn’t reading them at all. He was either chucking and ducking, or he was one read and off to the races, trying to use to X-man athleticism to get him out of every conceivable jam.

Even his big games, like the one against Washington earlier this year, felt fluky.

It felt preordained that head coach Matt Eberflus would be fired, Fields would be traded or benched, Caleb Williams would be drafted and it would be a new coach, new quarterback, and new era in Chicago.

After that was decided, Fields got injured in October against the Vikings. He broke his thumb and that was the nail in the coffin.

Then Fields came back.

In his last 6 starts, Fields has thrown for 1,284 yards, 10 touchdowns and only 2 picks. He’s 3-3 in that time. Those numbers pre-date the injury but show clear improvement from Fields.

He’s also playing quarterback better. He looked like Aaron Rodgers against the Lions, drawing them offsides on a big fourth down with his cadence and having the presence to snap the ball and send his guys deep. Then he finished it off with an absolute dot to DJ Moore. He also ran in a touchdown where he looked like the only guy on the field sprinting.

You can say a lot about Justin Fields, but you can’t say that he doesn’t make you stand up when he shows you just how athletic he is. Watching him, at times, is like watching John Wick. He invents new ways to kill defences when it’s all clicking.

Indeed, Fields actually is getting better, even despite a really poor start to the year. Over his last 17 starts, Fields has 3,004 passing yards, 25 touchdowns, and 11 interceptions. On top of that he has 1,237 rushing yards and 8 scores.

Fields has given the Bears something to think about.

And so has Eberflus. Matt Eberflus’ hair is so oily that George Bush would at least pretend there are weapons of mass destruction there. There was one game where his pre-game suit actually looked like the one that Joe Pesci wore in Goodfellas before he got whacked.

It was too easy.

Eberflus was hired as a defensive coach and his defence was an abomination. For anyone other than Brandon Staley that’s a death knell.

Now the Bears’ defence is playing better than it ever has under Eberflus. He’s changed from an incredibly static, cover-2 defence that was easy to play to an unpredictable defence that abides by the adage that if you aren’t going to be good on defence, at least be weird. That’s also what the Vikings have done under Brian Flores, and they just won a game 3-0.

The fact that the defence was just able to hold the Lions, one of the most physical and best offences in the NFL, to only 13 points while bullying them at the line of scrimmage is a testament to Eberflus. Indeed, since their trade for defensive end Montez Sweat, the Bears are a top 10 defence in success rate, EPA per play, yards per play, QB hits and explosive play rate, per Nate Tice.

They have gone from bad to pretty damn good on that side of the ball.

So, do the Bears dance with the ones that brung ‘em, while stockpiling even more assets for this coach and quarterback? Do they get rid of one of Fields or Eberflus? Or do they clean house and bring in a coach and a quarterback that are on the same timeline, for the first time in living memory?

I think the Bears should trade Fields, get rid of Eberflus, keep the first overall pick and bring in a coach and quarterback on the same timeline, both picked by the GM. Have the organisational stability that setup brings. And, if it doesn’t work in 3 years, you can fire them all and start again.

While you know what Fields is and you don’t know what Williams or Maye will be in the NFL, and it is almost certain that at least one of Maye or Williams will be mediocre to bad NFL quarterbacks, the Bears need to shoot for upside at the position. Fields is talented, no doubt, but he’s missed time in each of his years due to injury and plays quarterback in a very physical way.

There's also a financial element to this, that in my view tips it toward moving on. If you pick up Fields' option and decide to extend him, he will not be cheap. The going rate for a starting quarterback is in the order of $40m. That's what they cost.

They're Le Creuset cookware. They don't go on sale. You either buy one or you don't.

Do you want to pay that for Justin Fields? Or would you rather chance it with a rookie and have at least 5, realistically 7, cost-controlled years? I know what I'd pick.

Don’t be fooled by these recent wins and the very real glimmers of hope that have shone through in the last month or so, clean house and start again.