LAKE FOREST, Ill. -- Justin Fields is used to it at this point.
The Bears third-year quarterback has been asking officials to watch for late hits for the better part of two-plus seasons, but the flags just don't get thrown in his favor.
Fields took several questionable hits during the Bears' 31-26 meltdown loss to the Lions in Detroit. Lions linebacker Alex Anzalone was the culprit on a few of the shots on Fields. During the second half at Ford Field, Fields took off to the right side and was tackled by Lions rookie linebacker Jack Campbell. As Campell tackled Fields, Anzalone came flying in and made contact with Fields' head after he was down.
Stay in the game with the latest updates on your beloved Chicago sports teams! Sign up here for our All Access Daily newsletter.
Fields popped up and had words for both Anzalone and the officials.
That type of play was something Fields expected against the NFC North-leading Lions.
"That’s just what the Lions do — they play hard," Fields said. "We knew that coming in that week, the kind of effort and toughness and grit they play with. Their head coach preaches that. We kinda knew it was gonna be that type of game. I was talking to the ref and just asked, like telling him like, ‘yo, just watch out. Heads up for a late hit’ or something like that. I guess I didn’t get any. Keep playing ball and control what I can control."
CHICAGO BEARS
Last season, Fields got hit a lot and rarely got the benefit of a flag.
After a loss against the Atlanta Falcons, safety Jaquan Brisker came to his quarterback's defense and demanded the NFL officiate him like other signal-callers.
"If that was a different quarterback, they would be throwing hella flags," Brisker said last season. "A lot of flags. I feel like the league has to look at that. It’s crazy how many times he gets hit in the head every single game, but he still gets up. Gets hit out of bounds, late, or near the white.
"If that was Tom Brady, Jared Goff, or anybody like that, they throwing flags immediately. ... I feel like they got to respect Justin some more and look at him as a quarterback because, obviously, there you should be more flags. He’s getting targeted every single game and none of them are being thrown.”
In the last two seasons, Fields has gotten those calls five times. All of them came last season, with two coming in Week 1 against the San Francisco 49ers.
For comparison, Josh Allen has been the beneficiary of four roughing-the-passer calls this season, which leads the NFL. Last year, Jared Goff led the league with six. Fields has received zero roughing the passer or unnecessary roughness calls in six-plus starts this season after receiving five (one roughing, four unnecessary roughness) last season.
Fields does not get the benefit of the doubt when in the pocket and receives little to no protection when he takes off and runs. It has been a pattern for almost three seasons.
Toward the end of last season, Fields did acknowledge he must start asking for more calls to get the same treatment other quarterbacks receive.
"It's been like too many times this year where I felt like I've gotten hit late or something like that, and there's been no flag, so I mean, I'm going to be on the refs looking for a call, but when I think it's a flag I'm going to ask the ref, and on Sunday he said he didn't think it was a foul," Fields said. "Yeah, I'm going to be begging for those calls and just hope I get one, one in the near future."
Fields and the Bears are still waiting for those calls to come.