Playing to Justin Fields' Strengths

It's more common sense than a stroke of genius but the Bears could easily make drastic improvement for their quarterback easier to attain.

Matt Nagy surfaced safely away from Halas Hall this past week in his first press conference since the Bears lost the finale to Minnesota.

Now with a role as Chiefs assistant under coach Andy Reid and offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy as Patrick Mahomes' quarterbacks coach, Nagy sounded like someone who felt he would be a head coach again.

"You want to use your exeriences to make you better in the long run," Nagy said. "And I feel like I'm still young in this profession and I want to use my experience in Chicago to help me be better here for our team here in Kansas City wth coach Reid, with E.B. (Bieniemy) with Patrick with (GM) Brett Veach, with everybody here."

The experience he needs to use wisely is something new Bears offensive coordinator Luke Getsy already grasps.

"We've got to dive into what everybody does best, right?" Getsy said after his arrival in Chicago. "It starts with the quarterback. This is a quarterback-driven offense. The things the quarterback position does well, that's gonna be the driver of who we are.

"And then we're gonna marry that to what the other guys on the football field do well. That's the purpose of the offensive coordinator, right? To dive into what the people do well, what they do best, and then build the offense around that."

You build the offense around the quarterback's skills. 

It's not exactly a remarkable concept but one Nagy failed to grasp even though he often talked about trying to get Justin Fields outside the pocket and moving.

Nagy wasn't exactly a guy trying to run the classic Darrell Royal wishbone offense with Dan Marino or Joe Namath at quarterback, but he did refuse to stray too far from straight pocket looks with no extra blockers in the backfield. He rarely used motion other than a jet sweep or fake jet sweep, and all of these things were strengths of Fields that somehow went ignored.

The Bears had analytics experts on their staff. They even recently lost one when Brad Goldsberry went to the Raiders to do this. Yet Nagy chose to ignore the facts, many of which have come to light in the offseason.

Justin Fields had the NFL’s highest passer rating with 138.5 on designed rollouts, and the Bears called them on just 19 of Fields’ attempts.

Matt Nagy is awful, Part 536,209,364.

— Doug Farrar ✍ (@NFL_DougFarrar) May 31, 2022

• Fields had a 138.5 passer rating on designed rollout plays according to film study by USA Today's Doug Farrar, yet they ran designed rollout throws only 19 times.

• The Bears used motion in their offense on 43.8% of plays according to ESPN analyst Seth Walder. That was the 17th most in the league. Yet, Fields had a 96.6 passer rating when the Bears used any type of motion, presnap or at the snap, and only a 63.7 rating when they didn't use it. So obviously you should use it more. If you're 17th in the league it should be easy to increase motion if the quarterback is helped by it so much. Teams can use motion to help a passer determine whether a team is in man or zone coverage. It's especially helpful to young passers who lack experience reading defenses.

• According to Sportradar, Fields threw only eight passes last year out of RPO (run-pass option), which was something he did well in college and that Nagy touted as a centerpiece to his offense when he came to Chicago. That was tied for 37th in the NFL last year with Drew Lock and Tom Brady. Some of this is on Fields because it is run-pass option and he ran 11 times or handed off to his back. Still, only eight passes? Fields didn't suddenly become bad overnight at deciding when to pass out of RPO after he was good at it with Ohio State. If he had developed a problem with this, coaches should have addressed it.

• According to Sportradar, Fields threw 48 passes out of play-action last year. That ranked 31st in the league for number of attempts. All told, the Bears used only 81 play-action passes between three passers. There were 25 individual quarterbacks who used it more often than the Bears' three QBs did combined. The reason this is so bad is Fields had proven, like most QBs, he thrives with play-action. At Ohio State in 2020, he was 57 of 77 for 907 yards with nine TD passes and one interception for a passer rating of 146.4 off play-action. That's an NFL QB rating of 146.4 and not a college rating, which is calculated differently and produces higher numbers.

And now here's every team's motion rates in 2021. Number on left is motion on the snap -- what I mostly talk about. Number on right is all shifts/motion (including motion man coming set pre-snap).

Data all via ESPN's video tracking team. pic.twitter.com/3A43p6KDcd

— Seth Walder (@SethWalder) September 22, 2021

This all depicts someone coaching the team in a stubborn way and not using a player with obvious strengths as he can best attack opponents.

As a side note, Nagy came to Chicago bringing along what he said was the Kansas City offense and with a reputation for developing Mahomes. 

The Chiefs ran motion 64.5% of the time last year, second in the league. Mahomes threw 147 passes off play-action, third in the league behind only Josh Allen (178) and Justin Herbert (166).

It sounds like Nagy didn't even run the Kansas City offense he said he was bringing to Chicago, let alone an offense that works.

The purpose of all of this is not to simply join the dog pile on Nagy. He's a nice enough guy and doesn't need more grief, especially after some of the classless bashing he endured at the end of last season.

Rather, it's to point out how much better Fields can be this year simply because they have someone running an offense now catering to his skills.

Getsy hasn't done this in the NFL before, hasn't been an NFL play caller, and could easily revert to some ineffective attack ignoring Fields' strengths, as Nagy did when he went mostly from the pocket with only five blockers.

Don't count on it. The Packers offense is based off the Shanahan style of attack and the 49ers led the NFL last year in using motion. They did it on about 85% of plays. Also, Getsy reportedly used RPO very effectively when he was an offensive coordinator one year at Mississippi State.

Obviously Getsy has worked closely with one of the best quarterbacks of all time and received ringing endorsements from everyone associated with the Packers, including Aaron Rodgers, Davante Adams, Matt LaFleur and Nathaniel Hackett.

Consider how much different Fields could look in an offense where they actually use play-action, rollouts, bootlegs and motion.  

Fields is sadly in a similar situation to Mitchell Trubisky in Year 2. Trubisky had Dowell Loggains as offensive coordinator as a rookie. It was a wasted year. Getsy is to Fields what Nagy was to Trubisky. There was a huge step up in Trubisky's efficiency in Year 2 under Nagy, and the Bears are counting on Getsy being a huge step up from Nagy.

Now consider what kind of leap would be possible for Fields in Year 2 with an offense run by someone willing to cater to his strengths.

Much depends on whether they can get it blocked both for him and for the running backs, but it's usually easier for a fast quarterback to stay free of pass rushers if they are on the move—even if blocking is mediocre.

This is something Nagy never seemed to get, even though he was a coach who helped develop one of the league's most mobile passers in Kansas City.

Twitter: BearDigest@BearsOnMaven