New York Jets quarterback Justin Fields Kayla Wolf-Imagn Images

Jets QB Justin Fields Catches Stray During Caleb Williams Discussion

Originally posted on New York Jets on SI | By Colin Keane | Last updated Aug 15, 2025 6:12 PM ET

New York Jets quarterback Justin Fields might be learning that it’s not always easy to escape your past.

Fields has a fresh start as QB1 of the Jets after a disappointing situation with the Pittsburgh Steelers last season, in which he was benched after a 4-2 start to the year in favor of Russell Wilson.

Of course, prior to Pittsburgh, Fields began his NFL career with the Chicago Bears, an experience that also didn’t end successfully. Fields left Chicago with an 11-29 record.

Justin Fields has shade thrown his way during "The Herd"

As Fields enters the pressure cooker that is the New York media market — which will come with its ups and downs — the last thing Fields probably wants to deal with is additional criticism stemming from his Chicago tenure.

Well, hopefully Fields wasn’t tuning into “The Herd” on Friday as guest host Jason McIntyre of FOX Sports spoke with NFL reporter Albert Breer about the Bears.

When the conversation turned to Caleb Williams, McIntyre asked Breer to summarize how camp has been going for Williams under new head coach Ben Johnson.

According to Breer, Johnson and his staff are overwhelming Williams with information and tasks during the preseason and training camp, so that Williams will view the regular season as less complex by comparison. According to Breer, it’s a process that will also help Chicago’s new staff figure out what Williams does well and what he doesn’t do well, to arrive at a clearer blueprint for the season.

While it’s a logical tactic in theory, it’s a messy one in practice, and Williams has looked discombobulated at times during camp, even though the expectation is to have him looking sharp for Week 1.

Breer noted that Johnson’s handling of Williams in this way is a difficult thing to pull off under the microscope of the sports media in Chicago, and that’s when Breer also brought up Fields.

“It's a tough thing to do in a market like Chicago, right?” Breer said.

“That's an intense football market … if you're a coach there, you wear the failures of the guys that came before you. So for Ben Johnson, that's Matt Nagy, that's Matt Eberflus, that's John Fox, that's Marc Trestman.”

“And for a quarterback, it's the same thing,” Breer continued. “You know, you're wearing the failures of Justin Fields, Mitch Trubisky, and Jay Cutler.”

Luckily for Fields, the Bears are his past — not current — employer.

Fields will have the perfect opportunity in 2025 to rewrite the narrative of his career and become a household name in an even larger sports market than Chicago.

This article first appeared on New York Jets on SI and was syndicated with permission.

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