Charting Justin Fields Through 2 Years
With Justin Fields' third season as Bears starting quarterback fast approaching, the critics came out of the woodwork again.
Fields isn't Jalen Hurts, he isn't Lamar Jackson or Patrick Mahomes, they all holler. These would be people like Colin Cowherd and Michael Lombardi.
They're right. Fields is Fields, not one of those quarterbacks. For all his failures with Mitchell Trubisky, Matt Nagy has been around one QB who has succeeded greatly in Patrick Mahomes and the former Bears coach always maintained QBs all develop at different rates.
What did anyone think about Mahomes' development through 15 NFL games? He hadn't even played yet.
Different rates of growth make sense because they're different people all put into different offenses with different coaches who have different coaching methods. They play against different schedules and it's impossible to gauge them.
However the complaint Cowherd had was how Fields doesn't have 65% accuracy and his passer rating is poor.
Fields has been quarterback for only two seasons in two different offenses with two different coaching staffs. He had the misfortune of coming to a team on the decline and then in a total rebuild. The supporting help has been spotty to poor. Yet, some of his skills have become apparent in two seasons.
The comparison of Fields to Hurts, Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson has been made in nuerous places, but Jackson isn't a good comparison to anyone because of his unique skill set. He also hasn't had a typical career arc. His second season was spectacular but since then no one would confuse his 63.7% completions, 59 TDs to 29 interceptions, 7.3 yards per attempt and 92.5 passer rating for the last three years with his one MVP season with 36 TD passes, six interceptions, a 13-2 reord as starter, 66.1% completions and a league-best 113.3 passer rating. He hasn't come close since then.
Is Jackson overrated then? Hardly. Passers don't produce at steady climb toward a peak.
Factors like, maybe, their team, have a great influence. After all, it is the greatest team sport.
In fact, QBs don't even always improve according to the calendar or schedule. They'll often make big improvements within a given stretch of games in a given season and then move on from that point.
Comparing Justin Fields' Advancement
Fields had a big stretch of improvement already. It's safe for the Bears to expect he'll be even better than that level this season with better weapons surrounding him and a year's worth of knowledge about the offense. But that one stretch of 11 games last year represented a colossal jump forward and it was much like the jump made within a season by both Allen and Hurts in their careers.
Allen's jump was like the one Fields had last year. It was an 11-game stretch, and while not all of them were fantastic performances they did constitute a big leap forward. He went from a 68.8 passer rating with 13 touchdowns and 18 interceptions at 55% completions and 6.6 yards an attempt for his first 16 games to a 91.6 passer rating with 58.2% completions and 17 TDs to three interceptions in his next 11 games. Then came Year 3 and the arrival of Stefon Diggs and it helped cement his stature among the best young QBs.
Meanwhile, Fields went from a 70.3 passer rating with nine TDs, 14 interceptions, 57.3% completions at 6.9 yards an attempt while losing in 11 out of his first 16 appearances to a passer rating of 92.2, at 7.0 yards an attempt with 15 TD passes to seven interceptions with 62.9% completions.
Fields made this climb for his final 11 games last year with Darnell Mooney out in the last six games, Chase Claypool not knowing the offense and injured in two others and with rookie receiver Velus Jones Jr. struggling. There was also a menagerie of receivers who had been unwanted elsewhere: Dante Pettis, Equanimeous St. Brown, Byron Pringle, N'Keal Harry and Nsimba Webster. Fields had one tight end to throw to as the others seemed to be non-participants.
The remarkable thing about Fields' improvement is his running. Project his rushing production during that 11-game stretch over a 17-game season and he would run for 1,539 yards on 195 attempts. It's a wild rushing total but there's little wonder the Bears want to see his rushing attempts come down because a quarterback carrying it 195 times in the NFL is far more likely to have his sesaon ended by injury.
Finally, there is the great Jalen Hurts climb. His went more season-to-season than within a season.
It was more of gradual improvement the first two years, then a big jump when he was runner-up for MVP in Year 3, just as Allen was in his Year 3. Hurts' completion percentage for two seasons was below Fields' for two years at 59.0%. He had an 84.7 passer rating but had gone from 77.6 his first season to 87.2 his second, and then made the big climb to 101.2. He had 22 TDs and 13 interceptions for two seasons, then 22 TDs and six interceptions in his third.
Translating Improvements to Wins
Fields still hasn't won and that's a huge knock on what he's done. The Bears are 5-20 in his starts. This mystifies some.
Unlike in other sports like the NBA, the supporting cast in football and particularly for quarterbacks, is far more critical. A game with 11 moving parts moving in unison all the time is more difficult for one man to control than one with five players who can spontaneously take over one-on-one.
Fields not only had shaky receivers last year. This was the case even in 2021 when Allen Robinson limped with disinterest through the season. There was little offensive line support either season. No matter how long critics thinks Fields holds the ball, a total of 91 sacks on two seasons falls largely on his offensive line. They need to do something to earn their checks besides block for Khalil Herbert.
The separating factor in wins Fields struggled to achieve but both Allen and Hurts enjoyed was defense. Those two quarterbacks have been supported by great defenses. Fields' two Bears teams had poor and atrocious defenses.
The Bears defense in Fields' rookie year did rank sixth in yards allowed but 22nd in scoring defense and had more interceptions than only three teams. They were 23rd against the run.
Last season the bottom fell out on the Bears defense as they were 29th overall and last in preventing points. They were next to last against the run and last in net yards allowed per pass. While Fields went through his improved passing stretch of 11 games—one that included six games at 65% completions or better—the Bears defense plunged right into the tank at mid-flush. This is how you lose 10 straight in the NFL.
On the other hand, Allen had the benefit of second-ranked defensive support as a rookie, then the third-ranked defense in the season when his breakthrough stretch occurred. Allen has never played on a Buffalo team with a defense ranked in the bottom half of the league and only one season with one ranked outside the top six.
Hurts had the benefit of two top-10 defenses his last two seasons as he showed the improvement, and the Eagles made the playoffs twice. Last year they were the No. 2 defense in the NFL and that occurred the same season Hurts got A.J. Brown in his receiver corps to team with DeVonta Smith.
If the defensive changes made in the off-season pay off, Fields at an improved playing level for Year 3 could actually mean some victories for a change in Chicago.
Starting QBs After 2 Seasons
| QB | Completion % | Passer Rating | Starting Record |
|---|---|---|---|
Joe Burrow, Bengals | 68.2% | 100.2 | 12-13-1 |
Mac Jones, Patriots | 66.5% | 89.0 | 16-15 |
Deshaun Watson, Texans | 66.4% | 103.1 | 14-8 |
Tua Tagovailoa, Dolphins | 66.2% | 88.8 | 13-8 |
Justin Herbert, Chargers | 66.2% | 97.9 | 15-17 |
Patrick Mahomes, Chiefs | 65.9% | 111.7 | 13-4 |
Dak Prescott, Cowboys | 65.2% | 95.5 | 22-10 |
Lamar Jackson, Ravens | 63.7% | 104.7 | 19-3 |
Trevor Lawrence, Jaguars | 62.9% | 83.4 | 12-22 |
Daniel Jones, Giants | 62.2% | 84.1 | 8-18 |
Jared Goff, Rams | 59.8% | 89.4 | 11-11 |
Justin Fields, Bears | 59.7% | 79.7 | 5-20 |
Derek Carr, Raiders | 59.6% | 83.7 | 10-22 |
Ryan Tannehill, Dolphins | 59.4% | 79.1 | 15-17 |
Jalen Hurts, Eagles | 59.0% | 84.7 | 9-10 |
Geno Smith, Jets | 57.5% | 71.5 | 11-18 |
Josh Allen, Bills | 56.3% | 78.2 | 15-12 |
Matthew Stafford, Lions | 54.5% | 67.1 | 3-10 |
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