Nothing will take away Justin Fields' focus on being the starter for the Chicago Bears -- not even a family outing to celebrate his accomplishment.
The rookie quarterback was publicly named the starter going forward by head coach Matt Nagy on Wednesday, but Fields received the news Tuesday night while he was with his parents. As any proud parents would, they wanted to take him out to dinner to mark the occasion.
The No. 11 overall pick in the 2021 NFL Draft out of Ohio State didn't have time to relish in the moment with his family -- he has a game to prepare for.
Instead of going out with his parents, Fields opted to stay home with his dog Uno and study film on his next opponent -- the 3-1 Las Vegas Raiders.
"They wanted to go out to celebrate, and I just told them, 'Nah. I'm cool.' Because I'm trying to win this weekend," Fields told reporters during Wednesday's press conference. "Of course, there's some reason to celebrate, but I'm not just going to be complacent with where I'm at. I'm going to continue to grow, continue to get better and just try to work hard each and every day to get good wins on Sundays," Fields said during the media session.
His parents weren't going to let him stop them from celebrating their son becoming a franchise quarterback, however.
"They went out without me...I'm not sure where they went last night. But yeah, they went out without me," Fields said.
Fields earned his first win in the NFL last week against the Detroit Lions as the Bears improved to 2-2 on the season, throwing for 209 yards and completing 64% of his passes. He's started the previous two games for Chicago because the original starter, Andy Dalton, suffered a knee injury in Week 2. Nagy has been adamant Dalton is the starter when healthy but pointed to Fields' play in Week 4 as to why he made the rookie signal-caller the starter moving forward.
Even though he chose not to eat with his family Tuesday, Fields could feast on the field Sunday against the Raiders. Las Vegas is a middle-of-the-pack defense, allowing an average of 391.6 total yards of offense this year -- with 229.5 of those being through the air.
ESPN's Jeff Dickerson also contributed to this story