Familiar Source of Criticism for Justin Fields

Analysis: The complaints about Justin Fields keep on coming from the expert who says QBs have to hit 65% completions or go home.

Colin Cowherd is on his dump Justin Fields kick again.

Maybe only Michael Lombardi does this more than Cowherd.

Cowherd sees "people" apparently blaming other aspects of the Bears offense for Fields' past failures, when he thinks they should be blaming Fields. 

The Fox host deduced this apparently by watching Fields throw to that crack receiver crew last year of Equanimeous St. Brown, Dante Pettis, Nsimba Webster, Ihmir Smith-Marsette, N'Keal Harry and Byron Pringle, with a foggy Chase Claypool thrown in late while his head was still spinning due to making the move from Pittsburgh. Cowherd also ascertained this even while watching Fields get sacked 91 times the last two years.

"When a team is trying to figure out if their quarterback is the guy, they always blame people," Cowherd ranted.

"People" deserved to get blamed.

But this Bears coaching staff has never blamed anyone for anything and neither has GM Ryan Poles, when given the chance. They say they need to see Fields improve but they like the progress he has made. Maybe fans have blamed others besides Fields, but that's fans. 

The problem with Cowherd's latest rant against Fields is he doesn't give the Bears QB time to defend himself by stepping up. It's easy to be critical when someone can't or hasn't yet offered a defense. 

Also, and even worse, his entire argument is based on factual inaccuracies with twisted numbers. 

Other than that, it's fine.

Ultimately, Cowherd's point is what? That Justin Fields needs to be better this year?

Duh. 

Yawn. 

What else yah got?

There isn't anyone who follows football who thinks Fields can play like he did early last season and survive as an NFL starter. However, it's safe to say Cowherd wasn't closely watching the improvement by Fields over the final 11 games. 

That's because Cowherd never watches much of anything closely. His mouth is too busy getting in the way.

No more excuses for Justin Fields and the Bears:

"This should be a playoff team." — @ColinCowherd pic.twitter.com/TmiI5mFeBI

— Herd w/Colin Cowherd (@TheHerd) July 6, 2023

He makes the point Joe Burrow and Justin Herbert played behind atrocious offensive lines but succeeded. He maintains that the Bears offensive line wasn't terrible but was average last year so Fields should have succeeded. 

If the Bears line was middle of the road last year, then standards have really fallen. They let Fields get sacked 55 times. 

They were above-average run blockers, that's true, but the rushing stats were bolstered greatly by Fields scrambling and the line had little to do with that No. 1 rushing rank other than the fact he scrambled because their pass blocking repeatedly collapsed. They were atrocious pass blockers and they were being shuffled in and out of the lineup all year, with nine starting lineup changes.

So this point by Cowherd is largely stupid. Besides, no one with any credibility ever said Fields was a better passer than Burrow or better than Herbert. If they did, they're fooling themselves as much as Cowherd is by passing himself off as relevant.

"So two years in with Justin Fields, he's completing 59% of his throws, almost as many picks as TDs and a bad passer rating," Cowherd said. "He's a bad quarterback. He's also 1-8 in division."

The Bears are 1-8 in the division with Fields starting; put it more accurately.  his career passer rating is bad on the face of it but not over the final 11 games he played. It was over 92 for those games.

As for the 59%, it's actually 59.7% but who's nit-picking whom? This leads directly into Cowherd's next complaint, that Fields isn't Josh Allen, Jalen Hurts or Lamar Jackson.

"Josh Allen, by the way, completes 65% of his passes," Cowherd said. "That's the league average. You gotta get to the league average."

The league average, by the way, was 64.2% for a given game last year and not 65%. 

However, Fields was at 65.65% completions for Week 6 through Week 16, before he bombed out while being beaten up in a blowout loss at Detroit. 

Fields can't do anything now about the miserable first-year numbers compiled under Matt Nagy and it's those dragging down his career numbers. All he can do is get better; that is, unless he owns a DeLorean with a flux capacitor in it. 

Fields did get better. 

As stated, from Weeks 6-16 he was a totally different passer but that can be conveniently overlooked because it doesn't fit the Cowherd narrative.

Cowherd's entire premise is based on the past, and he's not taking into account what Fields gets the chance to do this year.

Cowherd sings praises for Hurts and his accuracy. After two years, Hurts' completion percentage was 59.0%. Fields after two years was 59.7%. 

Which is better? Oh. 

Hurts got better then. Suggestion: Maybe let Fields try to get better in Year 3?

Cowherd points out Allen, Hurts and Lamar Jackson became more accurate  as they went along.

"Then by year 2, 3, they became accurate throwers of the football," he maintained.

True enough, by Year 3. 

It would be good to give Fields Year 3 before running him out of town, don't you think? The others got their third year.

We're still waiting to see that Lamar Jackson turnaround, though.

Jackson's career completion percentage is 63.7%. If 65% is where you have to get, as Cowherd says, how is it that Jackson had one season when he went over 64.4% in his five years in the league but Cowherd calls him an accurate passer? 

The bottom line is those quarterbacks improved as their overall teams improved. 

The Bears have attempted to build something better around Fields after he had to carry the team last year during a necessary salary cap dump. If he doesn't step up or he regresses, he will be out of here. 

Everyone expects this. They don't need Cowherd hollering about it to know this.

Now they've put more offensive talent around Fields and we'll get to see the results. We'll see if he's better like Allen, like Hurts once they had better people around them. Still waiting to say that about Jackson, since he only hit that magic Cowherd number of 65% once. 

Everyone will see what Fields actually does, that is, except Cowherd, who won't really be looking at it because he never really does. 

He's just on to his next thing to bark about without facts backing up the things he's blurting out.

Twitter: BearDigest@BearsOnMaven