I said last week that the idea that Sunday’s contest against the Green Bay Packers was a final exam of some sort for Justin Fields was silly. No, check that. I said it just flat-out wasn’t true, and I meant it.

However, it should have been a final exam for the coaching staff, one in which they failed miserably, predictably enough.

Justin Fields was playing some of his best football down the stretch, but it wasn’t elite football, and that’s kind of where we’re at with Justin Fields. He’s talented. He may even be a quarterback with the right roster and coaching staff, that you can with with. But despite your love for Fields, he’s not — and probably will never be — a quarterback you win a Super Bowl because of.

He simply doesn’t do enough to hide warts around him, overcome subpar coaching, or make other players better. If the Bears were to hire the right coach and staff, draft Marvin Harrison Jr., and throw money at every other hole, they could win with him, but not because of him.

I’m not advocating they go another route, I’m just telling you what I see from him after watching every snap of his multiple times for three years. That’s it.

Quarterbacks that you win because of don’t need super teams around them at every turn. They mask roster construction flaws. They elevate their teammates. They earn coaches and executives extensions. They just win.

Did you happen to catch C.J. Stroud on Saturday night? The kid was nails in a win-or-go-home game in primetime on the road. Houston won three games last season. They were a touchdown away from having the number one pick last April. They hired a rookie head coach with a defensive background and a rookie offensive coordinator, who also began his coaching career in the NFL as a defensive coach. They gave him Nico Collins, Tank Dell, Robert Woods, and Noah Brown to throw the ball to.

They just won the AFC South; Stroud will win Rookie of the Year; DeMeco Ryans has as strong a case as any to win Coach of the Year; Bobby Slowik will get a head coaching job this offseason; Nico Collins had a career year, Tank Dell was a star … you see where I’m going?

That’s the difference.

And it’s not just C.J. Stroud. You watched Jordan Love carve the Bears up last night in a similar win-or-go-home game. Love looked lost to start the season, one that was essentially his rookie year as anything more than a clipboard holder and garbage time mop-up guy. Despite having a rag-tag group of nobodies at receiver (that’s literally what the Bears’ defense said about that group when asked why they played them so lose last night), his starting running back battling injuries all season, and one of the worst defenses in football Jordan Love threw for 4,159 yards, 32 touchdowns, and will be playing a playoff game next weekend.

But like I said, that doesn’t mean you have to pull the plug on Justin Fields. It just means you damn well better make sure that everything else around him is right.

You better launch the coaching staff into the sun and then hope that this time, you get it right. You better draft Marvin Harrison Jr. and hit on most, if not all, of your other draft picks. You better spend well in free agency, and you better hope that health and luck are on your side next season.

To me, it seems like much of this debate regarding the quarterback position in Chicago centers around fans being afraid of the unknown. They know what they have in Justin Fields, and they can imagine a world in which he can win if all of those things I mentioned go right.

That’s fair. I’m not here to dissuade you from your opinion one way or another. I’m just talking out loud like everyone else.

But one thing I do know is this: If Kevin Warren and Ryan Poles are serious about getting this right, there’s no way they can go into 2024 with a head coach who led a team to a disastrous 0-4 start, stood on the sideline while his team blew a 10-point fourth quarter lead three different times, and has one win this season against a playoff team.

So, while it may not be so long for Justin in Chicago, it should be so long for Matt Eberflus and his entire coaching staff. If not, the offseason is already off to a poor start.

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Feature Photo: (Photo by Todd Rosenberg/Getty Images)