Hopium: The idea that the fields evaluation isn't over, and he still has a chance to come back and prove himself. While this may technically be true, the body of work strongly suggests that fields will not come back in a mythicised, mvp form. There is, in fact, no reason to believe it will be true, and 6 good quarters as a passer is not enough evidence to bolster this notion as anything more than fantasy. Especially when they were followed up by the exact same output of fields we had all come to know, capped off with a very sad injury that ultimately arose from holding the ball for too long. This cope for not drafting a quarterback denies that the quarterback position is even a problem for the team, and is rooted in an emotional attachment to Justin Fields, for reasons like "he is a good guy" and the college team he played for. (Or even further, that the quarterback is so interrelated to the team and therefore the fan's identity, that they will never assign them earnest fault, instead opting to throw under the bus nameless, faceless players and position groups they have no attachment to, or coaches they also have no attachment to.) The hopium belief, that if fields turns into a consistent, top 10 starter, who we can then hold on to, is appealing because it provides us the most optimism heading in to the future, and we can allocate more draft capital into strengthening valuable positions. Its fallacy is that we are already playing with a hypothetical, and fields affords us hardly any more certainty than a draft pick.
QB erasure: the idea that the quarterback actually isn't that important, that the bears should sink capital into positions that are easier to draft, and simply sign an available free agent to be a bridge quarterback a year. These fans advocate for building up our roster to where we win enough games we will not be able to draft a high-end prospect without trading up- when we actually need one, because we are not winning anything important with a stopgap qb. (This is also known as putting the cart before the horse). The majority of these fans are out on fields, but probably on the older side, and undervalue the importance of the quarterback position. They believe that sitting Bo Nix behind Gardner Minshew is the key to success. The problem with this model is that you take your franchise qb out of sync with the team around him, racing to fill a hole with the hardest position in professional sports as your championship window closes as your roster ages and you can't afford new contracts. The hole that you could have filled in 2024, but you decided to build the team backwards. "But u/reverieontheonyx, getting our franchise qb and building up our roster can be done concurrently, we can just take a flier and let him sit and learn." Yes, it can. But your chances of drafting a franchise qb drop the more of them you pass on. What fuels this thought is survivorship bias from guys like dak prescott, who showed out as day 3 picks, that ignores the hundreds of low-capital investments who amounted to nothing who you have forgotten about or never heard of. You are taking the true observation, "the first quarterback taken isn't even the best in the draft most of the time", and taking it to mean "we should not take the first quarterback", instead of understanding "while the first quarterback taken is usually not the best of their class, it is the draft position most likely to render the best quarterback of its class." The fallacy stems from holding the first taken against the 11 after it, and so of course among the sum 11 there is a greater likelihood of "the guy" being there- but #1 is still the best odds of any one draft position. This is kind of a monty hall problem.
"But what about brady and stafford who got dropped into contending teams and immediately won superbowls?"
1.) What about Aaron Rodgers and Russel Wilson who didn't?
2.) Both of those teams were led by first overall pick qbs beforehand, who were able to stabilise the position while the roster was built into a contender. Worse picks are less likely to be able to do even that. Stafford was also a first overall pick.
The cursed franchise: The belief that the bears franchise is uniquely poorly run, and that no quarterback can succeed here due to factors outside of the quarterback's control. The evidence for this belief includes the fact that justin fields and mitch trubisky didn't succeed here, or that we have been poverty for the last decade, or that we have yet to have a 4,000 yard passer. This belief stems from main character syndrome, a misunderstanding of the probability that a quarterback is a bust, and a false cause of what actually makes a franchise poverty. There is nothing unusual about two quarterbacks busting- one of whom had only year as the starter in college after losing the qb competition to a nobody, and the other who was the fourth quarterback selected of his respective draft. These fans are the cynical counterpart to the Hopium contingent, who believes that fields cannot fail, only be failed, and may extend this to mitchell trubisky (who has apparently been failed by the steelers as well.) Their faith in the team has been rattled by losses that can only be explained by the malpractice of the old woman who owns the team and defers responsibilities to everyone else- once she passes, things may be different. Because as we know, it's not the players on the field that matters, it's about the billionaire whose hands the franchise is in. While true that some owners are better than others, and they do hire managers who hire coaches and draft players, and the mccaskeys aren't particularly good ones, this is not a reason to not invest in the quarterback position. (The same but even more can be said for the 4,000 yard passer factual- which btw, was true of the eagles as well.... until they drafted a qb...) Franchises are jokes until they aren't when they draft a franchise qb. Bad qbs get their coaches fired. Good ones keep their coaches employed. These fans call for the entire roster to be gutted, coaches fired, management canned- but curiously, the qb can stay. These fans, like the QB Erasure contingent, devalue the role of the quarterback position, believing our roster to be bereft of talent, and can be seen saying things like "even prime brady couldn't succeed with these coaches", or patrick mahomes with this oline, or caleb williams with "these pieces around him." They must not have been watching our current 2-7 season where several games were singlehandedly sabotaged with poor qb play, and we would have a winning record right now with better.
"Our coaches don't even call plays to the quarterback's strengths!"
What plays can you call for a QB who can't read a defence or get the ball out quickly enough to hot routes? More rollouts and designed runs? I thought he was supposed to take a leap as a passer this season.
"The lions had a franchise qb and they were a joke."
Yeah, but they were also better than us in that timeframe, stafford inherited an 0-16 roster, and he was leveraged in a trade for a haul. Plus if any franchise can claim being uniquely cursed, they have more of a right to it than we do.
So what does all of this mean? It means that fans who are arguing against using a high draft pick on a qb to replace our current bust qb are in denial about the bust qb we have now, the importance of the qb position, or that top tier prospects are more likely to turn into top tier nfl qbs. They may be making a logical error, or they may be unprepared to take the risk of drafting a quarterback high, because expectations open the possibility for disappointment. It will happen regardless, and it is our best chance of escaping the basement.
