Justin Fields confirms all suspicions regarding Ryan Poles following trade from the Chicago Bears
When the Chicago Bears decided the team was going to move on from former first round pick Justin Fields, the decision was far from an easy one to make.In the end, the move that was needed to be made was made by Bears' general manager Ryan Poles and when it happened, everyone felt like the […]
When the Chicago Bears decided the team was going to move on from former first round pick Justin Fields, the decision was far from an easy one to make.
In the end, the move that was needed to be made was made by Bears' general manager Ryan Poles and when it happened, everyone felt like the unfortunate situation was ultimately handled the right way.
As Poles explained throughout the entire process, his goal was to always to right by Fields and get him into a situation that will be beneficial to him, even if it meant a lower return. The Bears eventually agreed to trade Fields to the Pittsburgh Steelers on March 16th for a 2025 sixth-round draft pick.
Now, with the start of OTAs rolling through the league, we finally got the first look of Fields donning his new uniform in Pittsburgh and the media was finally able to speak to him for the first time since the trade went down, and Fields confirmed all the suspicions we had about the situation.
"Shoutout to Poles," Fields explained while talking to the Pittsburgh media. "We communicated to him through my agent, and I told him where I wanted to be and this was a place I wanted to be. He honored that and I appreciate him for that and glad he was able to put me in a spot where I wanted to be at."
The Bears drafted Fields with the 11th overall pick in the 2021 NFL Draft, where he started 38 games over the last three seasons. After a third season missing the playoffs with Fields as the starter, the Bears needed to make a decision at the position and Fields knew it.
"There was a lot of ups and downs, but all in all, I appreciate every relationship that I built," Fields said. "All of my [former] teammates know that, nothing but love for the city and the fans."
Armed with the first overall pick for the second year in a row thanks to a trade with the Carolina Panthers. The writing was all over the wall that Fields' time in Chicago was done and the Bears were looking to move in a different direction.
“It wasn’t really a shock (when I got traded)," Fields added. "I knew what was going to happen beforehand.”
Again, the process wasn't easy to move the former first round pick. The Bears worked the phones for weeks and once free agency began, things got complicated after the top quarterbacks on the market found new homes, including Russell Wilson who landed a deal with the Steelers. After Wilson was signed, Fields "thought the door was shut" to land in Pittsburgh until the team traded their former first round pick, Kenny Pickett, to the Philadelphia Eagles.
"My agent gave me the heads up a couple days before that Kenny might be getting traded. When I heard that and saw it in real time, I kind of knew where I was going," Fields explained.
As for the Bears, the front office went on to select quarterback Caleb Williams with the first overall pick in the draft and have since named him the starting quarterback going into the 2024 season. On the other side, Fields will be competing for the starting job against Wilson over the next few months in Pittsburgh. All in all, the trade turned out to be a win-win in terms of both sides being able to have a fresh start in 2024.
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