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Justin Fields was as quick with the play-by-play as he is shooting through a hole of an opposing team’s defense.
The Chicago Bears quarterback was sitting in a conference room at Halas Hall this week, talking about his development as a runner two days after he became just the third quarterback in NFL history to rush for 1,000 yards in a season.
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He hit that mark on a 1-yard run Sunday in a 25-20 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles. But he was talking about his last touchdown run, a 55-yarder against the Green Bay Packers, in which he slipped out of the grasp of diving cornerback Keisean Nixon, charged through an open lane up the middle and outran five Packers to the end zone.
One glance at a video clip, and he dived in.
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“When I’m in the middle, I really at first look to protect myself,” Fields said. “I’ve just got to feel where the defenders are. If I feel they’re barely coming to me or they think I might slide and I see a little crease, I’ll just hit that crease. … Then I can kind of feel when the defense is being lazy. I’ll just take advantage of that.”
In the middle of the analysis, Fields pivoted to another run that offensive coordinator Luke Getsy called “pretty incredible.” It was a 39-yarder against the Eagles in which Fields danced around pressure from linebacker Haason Reddick, dipped his neck to elude Reddick’s grasp, darted toward the left sideline, broke a tackle and evaded another defender with a spin move that would have gotten him into the end zone if he hadn’t stepped out of bounds.
“I was about to go out of bounds, but I felt that DB slow down and I felt him getting blocked, too, so I was like, I might try to score right here,” he said. “At first I was going to go out of bounds, but it’s like that split second where you feel them slowing down and giving up on the play. And then, boom, you just hit another gear and take off like that.”
Many defenders now know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of that gear shift.
In 13 games in his second season, Fields joined Michael Vick and Lamar Jackson as the only NFL quarterbacks to rush for 1,000 yards. Vick rushed for 1,039 in 2006, and Jackson rushed for 1,206 in 2019 and 1,005 in 2020. With three games left, starting with Saturday against the Buffalo Bills, Fields, who is at 1,000 even, is within reach of Jackson’s record.
“I’m already deep into this year, so might as well just try to go get that record,” Fields said after the Eagles game. “I think I need, what, 206? Three games left, 70 yards a game. We’ll see what happens.”
In a 3-11 Bears season, seeing what Fields is going to do next is part of an oddly positive vibe surrounding the team.
Yes, there are many arguments about where Fields is at in the passing game — he ranks 28th in the NFL with 2,048 passing yards while throwing 15 touchdowns and 10 interceptions. There are questions about how he can do more to help the Bears deliver in the clutch in the midst of a seven-game losing streak.
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But as Fields has ripped off 15 runs of 15 yards or more — including touchdowns of 55, 61 and 67 yards — one thing is not up for debate: He has delivered a kind of electric performance on the ground rarely seen among NFL quarterbacks.
“He’s made some incredible plays,” Getsy said. “And I think I’ve gone to (coach Matt Eberflus) every single time and I’m like, ‘That was the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen.’ To be able to say that multiple times is pretty cool.”
It’s one thing to know about Fields’ speed, to recognize he ran a 4.44-second 40-yard dash at his Ohio State pro day. It’s another thing to experience it on the football field.
Bears wide receiver Byron Pringle recognized it in the first practice of OTAs, when Fields and wide receiver Darnell Mooney finished first in all of the conditioning tests.
Quarterbacks coach Andrew Janocko saw Fields work out when he was getting ready for the draft. But with the Bears, the realization came during a routine run together across the practice field.
“My legs were moving, and his legs were moving, and we weren’t covering the same amount of ground,” Janocko said.
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For rookie defensive end Dominique Robinson, it was in practice, during one of the weekly periods in which Eberflus pits the first-team offense and defense against one another.
Fields escaped the pocket, and Robinson thought he had an angle on him.
“I’m not as fast as he is, but for a D-lineman I’m pretty fast,” said Robinson, who grew up as a quarterback and wide receiver. “He hit the corner, and he hit me with the peace sign. I’m like, ‘Aw, I got him.’ Actually, no. He hit that corner and he was gone. That’s when I was like, ‘Oh, this is for real. He’s legit fast.’”
Bears wide receiver Dante Pettis said one doesn’t understand Fields’ true speed until seeing it in a game, like on the 55-yarder, when Pettis looked for a pass, realized Fields was taking off, turned around to block and barely had the chance before Fields rocketed by him.
Ask Fields’ coaches and teammates which of those moments this season is their favorite, and they’ll give varying answers. A called-back, 52-yard touchdown against the Minnesota Vikings in which Fields wovethrough multiple defenders, reminiscent of a Vick score against the same opponent, received a couple of votes. Tight end Cole Kmet liked the 61-yarder against the Miami Dolphins, when Fields pump-faked a pass to Mooney, took off and left multiple defenders diving at his feet.
“At this point, you can tell in his eyes when he’s going to take off and run, so you just get out of his way and let him do his thing,” Kmet said. “You maybe try to find somebody to block, but he usually takes care of the rest.”
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Pure speed is obviously a large part of Fields averaging an NFL-best 7 yards per carry and occasionally making professional defenders look like they are running at half-effort. But a lot more factors into being able to rip off three touchdowns of 55 yards or more — a first in a season for an NFL quarterback — in a span of four games.
“His explosiveness,” Eberflus said. “He can get from 0-60 really fast, so I think that’s what makes him a little bit different. Some guys are shifty. He’s more of a power cutter when you look at him, and he can really put the gas on pretty fast.”
Added Robinson: “Selflessness. You know you’re going to have to take hits. You’re dang near a running back. He takes a lot of hits, and he’s tough, man. I’ve seen him get up from a couple hits and it’s just like on to the next play.”
Fields also maintains his quarterback skills and physical conditioning with the help of a crew of people he has had training him since junior high.
He started working with quarterbacks coach Ron Veal in sixth grade and still meets with him and another quarterbacks coach, Quincy Avery, when he’s home in Atlanta. For physical training, he hooked up with speed coach Charles “Tuna” Burhanan in seventh grade and still tries to improve his top speed, lateral movement and cuts with the coach who also works with Eagles running back Trey Sermon, among others. In college, Fields said he worked with Detroit Lions running back D’Andre Swift and a trainer on footwork.
Beyond that, Fields said, his running also has improved just because he’s been doing it so much.
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“I’ve had to run a little bit more this year, so I think my body has adapted,” he said.
Underneath all of the physical traits, there’s also a determination and competitiveness, illustrated in Fields’ story about that one time he got caught on a long run when he was a freshman at Georgia.
In a November 2018 game against Massachusetts, he broke to the left sideline and had a step on a couple of defenders. But he lost his footing and was caught from behind at the 20-yard line for a 47-yard run rather than a touchdown.
“Last time I got caught, I’ll never forgive myself,” Fields said. “It was just straight grass for like 40 yards. I got too excited to where I was just like, ‘Oh, my gosh, I’m going to score.’ I started losing my balance, and I got caught.”
If Fields ever looks back on one of his breakaway touchdown runs, that’s why, he said. He’s determined not to get caught.
“I think the only time I almost got caught was against Detroit, that long (67-yard) touchdown run when Jeff Okudah was trying to catch me,” he said. “That’s why I took an angle left. Because once you change that track, it’s over with. You can’t let them run in a straight line to try to get you. When you hit that and you’re by yourself, just don’t get caught.”
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Fields detailed the two races at the youth state track and field meet when he was about 8 years old like they were one of his eight touchdown runs this season.
As the 23-year-old remembered, coaches convinced him to try a three-point stance in the 100-meter dash rather than starting upright, and he got “blown out.” So when he got to the 200, he tried to gain a different prestart advantage through conversation with his opponents.
“I was trying to make an agreement, like, ‘Hey, I think I might jog the first 100 meters and try to sprint the last 100,’ ” Fields said. “But me, I’m so competitive, I’m just trying to get a little edge. Right when they turned that gun off, boom, I’m full speed.”
Fields remembered being one of the most athletic, fastest kids growing up, except for those two years in seventh and eighth grade when he “kind of got a little chubby,” he said. His father, Pablo Fields, said he hit a middle school/junior high patch where others grew before him. But before that, his son was “a freak.”
“I thought all little boys were like that, and then he’d race some boys, and he’d be like 10 yards faster than all of (them),” Pablo Fields said. “I’d be like, ‘Man, these little boys are nonathletic. Goodness gracious.’ ”
Fields’ football idols were Vick — whose cleats he owned — and Cam Newton — the reason he wears No. 1. He was “dead set on being a quarterback,” Pablo Fields said, and that’s why he enlisted Veal’s help so early.
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“I didn’t want that typical cliché of an African-American quarterback, but he’s raw,” Pablo Fields said. “So I got him a trainer so his footwork would be right and stuff like that. So he could throw the ball properly.”
The player Veal first started working with was coordinated, strong, with “off the charts” athleticism and an ability to easily run away from other kids “like it was nothing.” Fields still was learning how to pass as a quarterback, Veal said, but the football/baseball/basketball player could throw, a trait Fields said kept anybody early on from trying to convert him from quarterback to other positions, though he did play running back in youth ball for a year because a coach’s son was a quarterback. When he returned to playing quarterback in sixth grade, Pablo said his son was conscious of not wanting to be moved from the position again.
“He was a smart little joker,” Pablo Fields said. “Although he was pretty fast, he wouldn’t run as fast as he could because he was like, ‘Dad, I’ll be playing tailback next week.’ A predominantly white team. ‘If they see how fast I am, I won’t be playing quarterback.’ He was even that savvy at that young.”
Veal said Fields also had a unique focus, one that kept him on point for an entire hour session, during which many kids might lose focus midway through.
“He has more knowledge of the position (now), but as far as his focus to come to a session and work for the time that we’re on the field and get the stuff accomplished that we’re trying to accomplish, that part of the work ethic is the same,” Veal said. “The body has changed, the makeup has changed, the ability to play the position has changed. Now it’s more professional because he is a professional. But at an early age, it was just like I’m here to learn, I’m here to get it done and what are we trying to do today?”
Former Harrison High coach Matt Dickmann first glimpsed Fields’ athleticism and arm strength when Fields’ father sent him youth highlights. When Fields arrived at Harrison in Kennesaw, Ga., Dickmann also was struck by Fields’ intelligence and ability to retain.
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Fields started on the freshman team his first year as South Carolina-bound quarterback Lorenzo Nunez started on varsity. After growing 5 inches, Fields played as a sophomore before he suffered a broken finger. He hadn’t gained much national attention, though Pablo Fields was sending recruiting information to everyone he could. His first offer came in May of his sophomore year from North Carolina and quarterbacks coach Keith Heckendorf, who also coached former Bears quarterback Mitch Trubisky.
But Fields took off as a junior, when Pablo said his son grew comfortable in his new body. Going into that year, coaches also tweaked the offense to fit his skill set as a dual threat. Dickmann has plenty of memories of jaw-dropping plays, including that time they installed power read and Fields ran for a 60-yard touchdown the first time running it.
“When people started seeing his highlight tape, they’re like, ‘Oh, my gosh,’ ” Dickmann said. “I told him, ‘You’re going to blow up big-time.’ I don’t know if Justin really believed that. … I knew that he would because he just could do everything. There weren’t any weaknesses.”
Fields confirmed that uncertainty as he worked his way up to becoming a five-star recruit who had a documentary crew follow him around his senior season for the show “QB1: Beyond the Lights.” He totaled 4,187 passing yards and 41 passing touchdowns and 2,096 rushing yards and 28 rushing touchdowns at Harrison before heading off to Georgia and then transferring to Ohio State, where he earned his first-round draft status as a passer first.
“High school, I didn’t think I was good enough to go D-I,” Fields said. “I just wanted to be a walk-on somewhere at like Clemson, Mercer, something. I just wanted to play college football, just be on a team. As I started getting better, goals started changing.”
Fields didn’t need long to think about his answer when asked after Sunday’s game if he would set his sights on rushing for 1,000 yards every year.
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“No, sir. I don’t plan on rushing for a thousand yards every year,” he said, later adding, “I’m going to improvise, try to do whatever I can to put as much points on the board as possible.”
Fields becoming just the third NFL quarterback to hit the mark is a product of several factors. Those include his natural gifts. A coaching staff willing to embrace those abilities and deal with risk. Fields’ ongoing development as a passer in Getsy’s offense. A Bears roster that needs a boost in offensive talent. And a movement in the NFL to being more open to utilizing athletic quarterbacks in a different way.
Veal, who played quarterback at Arizona and in the Canadian Football League, referenced the latter when asked why he thought only Vick, Jackson and Fields have hit the mark.
“As Black quarterbacks come into the NFL, the first thing they say is they want to make them a what? A pocket passer,” Veal said. “The dynamic people who reached this 1,000-yard marker have been super, super, super dynamic with their feet and with their ability to throw the ball. I think a lot of quarterbacks, they’re trying to change them into just strictly pocket passers and leaving out the athleticism part of their game.”
Eberflus said he has watched the concepts that get quarterbacks on the move work their way up from youth to high school to college football.
“I just think it’s now bleeding up into the NFL,” Eberflus said. “And it’s a different way to do things than we’re used to seeing for the past so many years, and I think it’s exciting. You see all these different, dynamic quarterbacks that have the ability to run the ball, and people are using them in a smart way. Because it’s still the franchise guy, so you’ve got to protect them.”
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A couple of times this season, Fields has talked about how much more he is running in the NFL than in college. Over 22 games at Ohio State, Fields had 218 carries for 867 rushing yards and 15 touchdowns.
Quarterbacks who rush for 1,000 yards are more common in the college ranks, but Fields pointed to the abundance of offensive talent at Ohio State as a reason he wasn’t one of them. In 2019, the Buckeyes had 2,000-yard rusher J.K. Dobbins. In 2020, they had an elite trio of receivers in 2022 first-round picks Chris Olave, Garrett Wilson and Jameson Williams.
“There was no reason for me to run,” Fields said.
With the Bears this season, there was a reason, both because of Fields’ ongoing development as a passer in Getsy’s offense and general manager Ryan Poles’ teardown of the roster, which still will require upgrades to the players protecting Fields and the players catching his passes.
Over the first six games, as the Bears were learning Getsy’s new offense, they averaged 293.5 total yards and 15.5 points per game. Things began to change for Fields and the Bears offense in a 33-14 victory over the New England Patriots after a 10-day mini-bye that allowed the coaches to self scout and make some tweaks to the offense.
Getsy and Janocko have downplayed the idea that it was a turning point, saying instead that what came next was the result of steady progress.
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But Fields did get moving on more designed runs, and he has averaged 102.6 rushing yards and totaled seven rushing touchdowns in his seven games since. The Bears averaged 26.7 points in those games.
But a big chunk of Fields’ rushing numbers also come from scrambles, when his protection breaks down or he can’t find an open receiver or he decides not to make a throw. Those issues presumably will happen less if Fields continues to develop as a passer and if Poles makes offseason moves to bolster the offense.
In a higher-functioning passing offense, perhaps Fields wouldn’t have to rush for 1,000 yards.
Getsy and Janocko, though, praised his willingness to do it this year.
“He wants to do whatever it’s going to take to win, if it’s running, if it’s throwing,” Janocko said. “But he sees the big picture and sees where we’re going to go as an offense.
“(The running ability) is what makes him special, and that’s what we’re trying to build on, that type of playmaking ability, and then just keep developing him as a passer, as a quarterback and as a decision-maker. Developing all of that so then that God-given ability can come out when it needs to.”
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Getsy was aware of Fields’ comments about potentially breaking Jackson’s record. He said the Bears won’t sacrifice winning to help him get there. But he thinks because Fields’ running naturally helps them be competitive, they might not have to think about it much.
He likened the situation to watching the Golden State Warriors and seeing Kevon Looney nearing his first career triple-double.
“I saw all those guys running to Coach (Steve) Kerr like, ‘C’mon, dude, he just needs (one assist for) a triple-double.’ And they took him out of the game,” Getsy said. “We won’t take him out of the game.”
And that means there’s always a chance for another electrifying play.
“You just sit back and have a smile on your face because I know he can go beyond where he is now,” Veal said. “It’s just a joy to watch.”
