Bears Trade Justin Fields to Steelers for 2025 Sixth Round Pick
After months of speculation, Bears GM Ryan Poles finally moved on from starting quarterback Justin Fields trading him to the Pittsburgh Steelers on Saturday. The market for Fields was far weaker than the front office was hoping for and Pittsburgh sent Chicago just a sixth round pick in the 2025 draft that could improve to a fourth round pick if he plays a certain number of snaps in 2024.
Bears are trading Justin Fields for a 2025 6th-round pick that goes to a 4th-round pick based on playtime, per sources. pic.twitter.com/E7JY7K60Wn
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) March 16, 2024
Fields showed flashes throughout his Bears career, especially with his ability to create off-schedule plays with his legs. Unfortunately, he could never find any consistency throwing the ball and only had one career 300 yard passing game in three seasons. The opportunity to select a potential franchise quarterback with the number one pick in the 2024 NFL Draft forced Chicago to make a move they might not have if they had a worse draft position.
Fields is also in the final year of his rookie contract and the Bears would have been forced to exercise a costly fifth-year option or give him a long-term extension after next season that would have taken a big chunk out of their future salary cap space. Clearly, no other team wanted to take a similar risk, which allowed the Steelers to get him for basically nothing.
Fields is likely to be a back up for the newly signed Russell Wilson in Pittsburgh. Chicago will now focus its attention on drafting their future quarterback, likely USC’s Caleb Williams, but no decision is final at the moment. Whoever it is, time will tell if they will be able defy the Bears history and become the franchise quarterback Justin Fields and many others have failed to become.
