The Chicago Bears absconded with a 23-20 victory over the Houston Texans on Sunday, but it was a dismal day for quarterback Justin Fields.
"Straight up, I just played -- I don't want to say the A-word, but I played like trash," Fields said via Courtney Cronin of ESPN. "Really just got to be better."
Fields completed just eight of 17 passes (47.1 percent) for 106 yards, took five sacks and threw two interceptions.
"I'm going to go see the film tonight. I played terrible," he said. "See what I could have done better and get better."
The Bears leaned on the ground game against Houston, with Khalil Herbert dashing for 157 yards and two TDs on 20 carries in place of David Montgomery, who exited Sunday with a shoulder injury. Fields added eight carries for 47 yards, with a long of 29, as Chicago rushed 40 times for 281 of their 363 yards.
Chicago earned the victory thanks to a late Roquan Smith interception that set up Cairo Santos' game-winning 30-yard field goal as time expired.
The Bears moved to 2-1 on the season, tied for first in the NFC North, but there is little optimism they can hold that standing without improved play from Fields.
"I think when you are working with a young quarterback in a new offense, I think the people around him have to be solid," coach Matt Eberflus said. "So that's important for us, meaning that the protection has to be good, the run game has to be good, the defense has to be really good and special teams, we've got to be awesome.
"What you do is you support that quarterback while he's growing. And while he's going through this, and there's going to be good and there's going to be things that he has to improve on, but that's on the whole football team. The whole football team is like that."
The Bears haven't trusted Fields to do much with his arm through three games. Chicago has just 45 pass attempts on the season, the fewest through three tilts since the 1982 New England Patriots (44). Unless the QB improves dramatically, Chicago will continue to lean on the ground game.