In his final push to make his case to the Bears, or perhaps a team that would be interested in trading for him, quarterback Justin Fields will face two opponents deeply intertwined with his football career.

First, he’ll take on his childhood team, the Falcons, at Soldier Field on Sunday. Then he closes the regular season with a trip to Lambeau Field to face the Packers, against whom he is 0-5.

Fields was a bit too young to follow Falcons great Michael Vick, but he’s heard the stories and seen the YouTube clips. He grew up with the quarterback-receiver duo of Matt Ryan and Julio Jones, who frequently power the Falcons to one of the better offenses in the NFL.

This version of the Falcons looks quite different as they languish at quarterback and struggle to take advantage of a defense that has given up the sixth-fewest points in the NFL.

“They’re strong at every level,” coach Matt Eberflus said.

That makes them an ideal opponent for Fields, though.

Part of what Fields, or any young quarterback, must prove is that he can produce against top defenses. And this season, he has lit up the bad ones and sputtered against good ones.

His best games — back-to-back performances in which he totaled 617 yards passing and threw for eight touchdowns — came against the Broncos (29th in points allowed and opponent passer rating) and Commanders (32nd in both).

In his five starts against teams in the top half of the NFL in scoring defense, Fields completed 57.2% of his passes, averaged 150.2 yards passing and posted a 67.6 passer rating. Removing the two interceptions he threw on Hail Mary passes against the Browns in Week 15, his rating is still just 73.7 in those games.