One of the Bears’ all-time greats is exasperated with the state of the team as it sits 3-6 on the bye week. Hall of Fame linebacker Dick Butkus called for “drastic” changes and is worried that the organization is going to ruin rookie quarterback Justin Fields.
Butkus, appearing on the Stacking the Box podcast this week, specifically went after coach Matt Nagy’s lack of creativity, the offensive line’s failures to protect Fields and the Bears’ woeful shortage of quality cornerbacks.
Butkus took it too far on the offensive line, which has actually played better lately, and made a ridiculous, tasteless comment that the entire unit “ought to be arrested for attempted murder” because it is allowing Fields to get hit so often.
“And a couple other people should be arrested for imitating cornerbacks,” he said. “But anyway, yeah, I’m frustrated. I think George McCaskey and the Bears’ head office should be doing some drastic things.”
While he didn’t say it directly, it appeared Butkus believes one of those moves should be firing Nagy. He said he had no comment on Nagy or general manager Ryan Pace, but went on to say he can easily predict what play the offense will run.
“They got the guy; they got the quarterback,” he said of Fields. “They’ve just gotta get someone up front. They ought to be more creative in their plays. When you can sit home and... They’re always in a third-and-seven situation where everybody knows they’ve gotta throw and that poor kid is running for his life.
“If this is the [quarterback], and I’m sure it is, you’ve gotta start doing some things to try to improve the offensive line. I mean, nothing against them, but they’re not doing the job.”
Fields has been sacked a league-high 29 times, but nine of those were in one game against the Browns and a portion of that total is due to his style of play as a mobile quarterback.
Butkus, 78, also weighed in on the Bears’ potential move to Arlington Heights saying, “They should stay downtown,” but acknowledged the massive financial windfall that would come with building their own stadium.
