I would say that Bears fans are all extremely over relitigating Justin Fields' exit, but literally 10 seconds spent on Bears Twitter says otherwise. Especially in the wake of Caleb Williams' slowish start – compared to Fields' and the Steelers' 3-0 start – there's quite a bit of hindsight flying around the greater Chicagoland area at the moment.
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From the Bears' side, moving on made all the sense in the world. Fields wasn't developing the way that franchise QBs typically do, and it's hard to turn down the first overall pick two years in a row – even moreso when Williams was available. It certainly felt at the time like all sides were fine with moving on, and while speaking on Cam Heyward's podcast recently, Fields provided some new depth into his side of the story.
Justin Fields reveals moment he knew Bears were going to trade him
"It was kind of tricky for me," he said. "I kind of had a feeling that I was going to get traded. After the season, you have your little exit meetings, and we've been dealing with people and coaches our whole lives, so you know how to read somebody. They kept it pretty brief. They said, 'You know, we're in a tricky situation right here, a situation that we've never been in.' But, you know, we were in the same situation the year before because we had the number one pick from the Panthers ... "
"It was two different conversations when we were in the same situation, so you kind of get the feeling of what's going to happen. At that point it's just training and wondering where you're going to go. Luckily, they didn't do me too bad by letting me choose where I wanted to be."
Nothing about this is super juicy (sorry), but it is interesting to hear Fields talk about how the same meeting went so differently in back-to-back years. Even if the Bears were trying to keep their cards close to their chest, I imagine it was pretty obvious when they were way less committed to his offseason program the second time around. That's a tough look for the Bears' front office, although credit where it's due for letting Fields more-or-less pick his next destination.
There you have it. The Justin Fields saga has now definitively come to a close. I imagine this will make everyone stop tweeting about how the Bears let him go too soon?