Former Bears QB rips team for Justin Fields trade

Current NFL analyst Chase Daniel didn't hold back during an appearance on NBC Sports Chicago's "Football Night in Chicago" program regarding his feelings about the club trading Justin Fields to the Pittsburgh Steelers for a conditional 2025 sixth-round draft pick ahead of this past weekend. 

"Why could you not have held onto him maybe for a few more months?" Daniel said about Fields, as shared by Ryan Taylor of NBC Sports Chicago. "I understand your franchise and your job is trying to take care of a player in Justin Fields and put him in the right position. .. But if you hold onto him in training camp, maybe preseason, maybe Week 2 or 3 of the season ... There were 13-14 different starters who got hurt last year. Your trade value immensely rises."

Brad Biggs of the Chicago Tribune pointed out in a piece published Wednesday morning that there simply "wasn’t a lot of interest in Fields" from other clubs during and after the NFL scouting combine. 

Bears general manager Ryan Poles hadn't hidden the fact he wanted to "do right by" Fields with Chicago presumably planning to make USC Trojans quarterback Caleb Williams the first pick of this year's draft, and multiple reporters previously insisted that individuals within the organization didn't want Fields and Williams sharing a locker room for any amount of time this summer. 

"If you put the pieces that you're putting around the No. 1 pick, around Justin, I feel like he would've gotten even better," Daniel said about what could have been had Chicago held onto Fields. "He got a lot more comfortable in the pocket. He processed things at a much higher rate. He won over the locker room. He won over the city."

Fields' popularity among pockets of Chicago fans and teammates likely impacted Poles' decision to pull the trigger on a transaction approved by the 25-year-old's camp with the opening night of the draft still over a month away: