Earlier this season, Justin Fields said he felt robotic when he played. He wanted to play free and spontaneous.

Whatever has changed since then, it's working.

Fields has been very good the last two weeks after a rough start to the season. He was 15-of-29 for 282 yards and four touchdowns in a 40-20 win over the Washington Commanders on Thursday, the Bears' first win of the season. It was the type of game that gives the Bears hope that Fields can put it all together and become their quarterback of the future.

There might be some complicated decisions to be made before the draft next April, but that's far down the road. Right now, the Bears have a 24-year-old quarterback who has shown a lot of progress the past two games.

Justin Fields has two big weeks

Last week Fields had a strong game against the Denver Broncos. He threw for 335 yards, four touchdowns and one interception. The Bears blew a 28-7 lead and lost, and Fields was part of that, but it was a good passing day.

Fields doubled down on that Thursday. Through Chicago's last two games, he has 617 yards and eight touchdowns. His 11 passing touchdowns this season are tied for the NFL lead. That will change when games are played on Sunday, but it's a good spot for Fields.

It's only two games, and against a terrible Broncos defense and a Commanders defense that might not be much better, but it's undeniably progress for a quarterback who isn't even one-third of the way into his third season.

"Just poise. I saw poise the entire time," Bears coach Matt Eberflus said after Thursday's game. "You could see him being comfortable in the pocket, going through his reads, delivering the ball on time."

Every week in the NFL is a referendum on everybody. That's just a byproduct of the extreme interest in the league. Look at Fields. A couple weeks ago, the answer on whether the Bears should commit to Fields long term seemed to be a clear no. The last couple weeks, he has pushed that answer closer to maybe. He has the rest of the season to make it a yes.

That answer might be the biggest piece to the NFL's offseason puzzle next year.

Bears like Fields' momentum

In 15 of the last 21 years, the first overall pick went to a team that started 0-4, according to Yahoo Sports' Charles Robinson. That's about 71.4 percent. There were two 0-4 teams in the NFL, and the Bears owned the 2024 first-round picks for both.

Even if Thursday's win was a sign of the Bears breaking out and playing better the rest of the season, they still own the 0-4 Carolina Panthers' first-round pick. If the Bears get the first pick, or even the second, they'll have a very interesting decision to make. At that point, will Fields have played well enough for Chicago to pass on an elite prospect like Caleb Williams? Or even Drake Maye with the second pick? If the Bears trade the first pick to a QB-needy team, it could bring back a historic haul.

It would have seemed like a non-question a couple weeks ago. Fields' deficiencies as a passer were picked apart. But since then Fields has had the two best passing games of his NFL career. He put up the only two four-touchdown games of his career in back-to-back weeks. He has thrown for more than 254 yards in a game four times, and two of them came in a five-day stretch. The two best passer ratings of his career were Sunday against Denver and Thursday against Washington.

He's still not a polished passer, but he's a young player with a first-round pedigree who is improving. That's a perfectly reasonable place to be at this point in his career.

"He's really learning the position, learning the offense, just growing," Eberflus said. "Now he's starting to get the fruits of his labor the last couple weeks, and we're going to build on that momentum."

If Fields continues to play like he has and the Panthers continue to play like they have, what the Bears do will be the talk of the offseason. Those decisions won't happen for a long time (and Williams has decisions to make too, regarding if he'll come out or stay at USC). All that matters for the next few months is figuring out what they have in Fields. The last two games are starting to change that narrative.