Bears coach Matt Eberflus gave a deliberately pointless update on Justin Fields' health

Chicago Bears head coach Matt Eberflus is in the midst of a terrible season on the Windy City sideline, and his Wednesday press conference just underscored why that’s the case.

While discussing quarterback Justin Fields’ health status, Eberflus led reporters on a bizarre scavenger hunt for answers as he indicated that Fields was both “doubtful” and “out” for Thursday night’s game against the Carolina Panthers.

If you’re curious, an NFL player cannot be both doubtful and out. Doubtful indicates that a player is probably not going to be active, but that circumstances could change closer to game time. Out means, well, out.

Eberflus started out by saying Fields was doubtful, indicated that he wasn’t going to play, then immediately tried to backtrack what he had just said by saying that Fields was, indeed, doubtful. So … yeah.

What an odd press conference by Chicago Bears head coach Matt Eberflus on if Justin Fields is doubtful or out for tomorrow night’s game.

(Video via @ChicagoBears) pic.twitter.com/olsHzvYL1h

— Daniel Greenberg (@ChiSportUpdates) November 8, 2023

If you’re able to figure out what Eberflus is saying here, we’re impressed. He seems to be trying to say that Fields is doubtful to play on Thursday, but he also basically just said that he’s not going to play.

Why not just say Fields is doubtful and leave it there? Unless Eberflus slipped his tongue about the quarterback actually being out and tried to deflect that snafu in the moment to maintain some unsuccessful aura of mystery, we’re really confused as to what was happening here.

Well, we’re still pretty confused, regardless. We’re confused about a lot of things going on with Chicago right now, which is probably why they are one of the NFL’s worst teams this season.