3 matchups that will decide Chicago Bears vs. Cardinals
2) Justin Fields vs. a porous Arizona defense
The hottest debate in football right now is what the Bears should do with the #1 pick that they look extremely likely to receive from the Carolina Panthers. Many Bears fans want to keep Justin Fields and continue to build around him, but there's a vocal contingent that is ready to start fresh with presumed #1 pick Caleb Williams under center.
Fields' play has allowed each camp to see what they want to see. Fields supporters will point to the gorgeous deep ball he threw early last week to Robert Tonyan that the veteran tight end dropped as a sign of Fields' breathtaking ability. The "draft Williams" crowd will wonder why Fields couldn't manage better than 166 yards on 40 attempts against a Browns defense that was missing multiple key starters.
There's one big factor working against Fields in determining his future in Chicago, and I'm not even counting offensive coordinator Luke Getsy, whom I can only hope will one day be prosecuted for his crimes. The Bears only have one semi-cheap year of Fields left, and after that he'll need to be paid. Drafting a quarterback resets the clock on that big contract, allowing the Bears to spend that money elsewhere on the roster.
For Fields to be the Bears' quarterback moving forward, he needs to remove all doubt, and to this point, he hasn't done that. Ryan Poles needs to see Fields light teams up, and there isn't much time left.
The Browns are one of the better defenses in the NFL, but the Cardinals are decidedly not. In their last three games, they got torched by a potent Niners offense for 45 points, held a hapless Mitch Trubisky-led Steelers offense to 10 points, and got lit up by the Rams for 37 points.
What this tells me is that good offenses rip the Cardinals up, but they can hold their own against the bad ones. Justin Fields needs to show that he can be the leader of a good offense and hang 30+ points on the board. Hell, throw for 300 yards. If he wants to be the guy, now is the time to show it.