Fields will start last preseason game, Dalton will sit originally appeared on NBC Sports Chicago
The moment Bears fans have waited for all season is finally here. Kinda.
Matt Nagy announced on Tuesday morning that Justin Fields will start the team’s final preseason game against the Titans this Saturday. But he also said that Andy Dalton is sitting because he’s still the Week 1 starter.
“I think it’s going to be a good opportunity for him and then, you know, we’ll be selective across the board for the other players as we go,” Nagy said. “But you’re gonna see a direction of more kind of like the old-school fourth preseason game for that.”
The plan right now is for Fields to play for about two quarters with some, but not all, of the starters. We still don’t know who all those starters will be, but Nagy intimated that it would be mainly the first offensive line unit. One guy who’s not likely to get any playing time is Allen Robinson. He hasn’t played at all this preseason and that probably won’t change this weekend. But even getting reps with a few starting skill players like Darnell Mooney and Jimmy Graham, or taking snaps from first-string center Sam Mustipher, will be key for Fields’ timing for when he eventually takes over the offense.
But to be clear, this is not an audition for Fields to win the starting job.
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“For us it’s all about him just getting better,” Nagy said. “We just want to see him play hard, play well.”
So that brings about the million-dollar question: when will the Bears pass the torch from Dalton to Fields? According to Nagy it boils down to production and wins.
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“When you look at this thing you want to make sure we all support each other with one common goal: to win, and offensively to score touchdowns,” Nagy said. “Andy knows that, Andy is well aware of that. Andy's excited for the opportunity to show what he can do with these starters and in this offense. Then we've just got to一 every day we have to evaluate and we have to see where we're at, every single day.”
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