Has Justin Fields Done Enough?

Analysis: Second season is now in the books for Bears QB and he still hasn't had a real public endorsement from Matt Eberflus or Ryan Poles.

It's easy to look at Justin Fields and see a player the Bears would be willing to trade if they wound up with the No. 1 pick in the draft.

It's also easy to look at him and say they'd be taking a risk like no NFL personnel boss or coach in their right mind would take if they traded him.

Fields emerged from Year 2 with the reported hip injury that led to sitting out the finale, and in two seasons he has teased with fantastic highlight plays as a runner. Most of those came in his second season. He has also flashed as a passer, although not with the same regularity.

Passing Flashes

It almost seems forgotten now after all of his runs, but he flashed enough brilliance as a passer in Year 1 to give hope for what he could do in Year 2.

There was the Pittsburgh game when he threw for 291 yards and put completions in places where they had no right to be. In the San Francisco game, he pinpointed a TD pass on the run by leading former Bears tight end Jesse James with microscopic accuracy. When Fields ran for an NFL record 178 yards this year against Miami, he also threw three touchdown passes and might have pulled out the game except for a fourth-down pass led perfectly to and uncaught by Equanimeous St. Brown.

It's easy to forget, but the Bears offense last year was a better passing attack than this one. 

"I think it's a complicated offense to pick up as a quarterback, a lot of moving parts, and I think he's done a great job as a quarterback coming from three offenses in the last three years to picking it up for the first time with no hiccups, calling plays and being a leader out there," said St. Brown, who experienced the offense run by a master in Green Bay.

This one also had worse pass catchers than last year's offense.

Besides Darnell Mooney for an entire season, Fields also had Allen Robinson. Even in last year's struggles, Robinson combined with a healthy Mooney was far better than Mooney for only 11 games and the conglomerate of St. Brown-Velus Jones Jr.-Dante Pettis-Byron Pringle-N'Keal Harry-Chase Claypool.

At tight end, even Jimmy Graham at retirement age was more productive backing up Cole Kmet than Ryan Griffin has been.

Perhaps with more work and another season working with some of those receivers, a connection develops. The Bears have to hope that's the case with Claypool after trading a second-round pick for him. They must think it will happen with St. Brown or they wouldn't have signed him to a second season this week. 

"I think (that) the quarterback/receiver relationship is critical," offensive coordinator Luke Getsy said. "I think that establishing that, having that consistently each and every week is critical to both of their successes.

"I think when you're throwing the football, usually the person's not where they're supposed to be already, and so the anticipation of body movements and angles and depths and how a guy reacts to a particular leverage that he's faced, I think all that stuff and having those reps behind it, is vital. It's the most critical thing to the passing game. I don't want to limit it to there has to be just a No. 1 receiver. I think it's probably more valuable to see, OK, these are my consistent guys or guy that you're throwing to each and every week."

The comparison

This season Fields' passing was more about becoming efficient and consistent. He succeeded to a decent extent as his passer rating went up 12 points to 85.2 and it included six games at 92.2 or better and four in the 100s. He did it without lowering his yards-per-pass average, a key number, as it went up to 7.1.

By comparison to Year 2 for Philadelphia's Jalen Hurts, Fields was two points worse in passer rating in his second year threw one more touchdown and three more interceptions and his 7.1 yards per attempt were 0.2 below Hurts. As a runner, Fields had 5 more yards this year alone (1,143) than Hurts had for his entire first two seasons (1,138).

"He's proven that he knows what to do," offensive coordinator Luke Getsy said. "He has proven in practice that he can apply.

"As you get to the real game experience, you talk about the real speed, the coverage is changing, or the pressure that's happening, or whatever, something that changes and then in a split second be able to apply it appropriately. Yes that is definitely experience that he didn't have and that he got a lot of this year. So hopefully we continue to grow on that."

The next step then seems like it should be easier.

"As we go into next year, now he's had this experience, he's had his opportunities to get more comfortable with the communication of the system, hopefully get more comfortable with the people around him," Getsy said. "All that stuff, any time you can get that cohesiveness of the unit together, and knowing what the culture looks like and he's the leader of that culture, I think all that stuff is promising stuff."

It might also help to have his line solidified. Fields has been sacked 91 times in two seasons, some from holding the ball too long and some because of poor blocking. Hurts held the ball a long time in Philadelphia in his second year. According to NFL NextGen Stats, he was slowest to get rid of the football last year in the league yet he got sacked only 26 times. 

In other words, Hurts had time to work his way through his progression and took the time he needed. He eventually learned it well enough by Year 3 to flourish.  

By the way, Hurts got the ball off in 3.12 seconds on average in Year 2 according to NextGen. In his second season, Fields took 3.12 seconds to release the ball or get sacked.

What could Fields do with someone who stands their ground lining up in front of him instead of someone who melts in the face of a bull rush?

Is He the Guy?

Despite all of this, you won't hear the Bears saying Fields is their quarterback for the future. They almost seem to be going out of their way to avoid saying it, or even to analyze Fields' play. 

Is it simply draft strategy to be quiet about what they think of their own passer?

"I got, really, a chance being with him the whole year to get to know him as a person," coach Matt Eberflus said. "Man, I'm very impressed with his resiliency and his grit and how he fights, how he works. He really is able to take a great play and also a play that wasn't too good and move to the next one. That's a great quality to have as a leader.

"I saw him really come out of his shell a little bit. The first couple games you saw him come out, as soon as he started to perform and make these plays that he is capable of, you really started to see his leadership grow during that time. That's what really was most impressive."

At no point did Eberflus say he learned he has a great passer, though.

GM Ryan Poles didn't say it on Sunday when he had a chance in a pregame interview with team broadcaster Jeff Joniak.

In lieu of that, Eberflus did add one other thing.

"I just learned that he is an amazing athlete," Eberflus said. "He really is. He can really lead this team. He's done that.

"He's certainly developing. We know that. He's going to continue to develop as we go."

It was as close as anyone has said to admitting Fields is their guy for the future. It will have to suffice until Poles says something at their postseason press conference, or maybe after they pick a defensive lineman in the first round of the NFL draft.

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