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The original was posted on /r/nfl by /u/Dont_try_it7 on 2024-02-10 00:24:49.

Ok so I want to start this off by saying the intentions of this post aren’t really to sway your opinion one way or the other.

Instead, I am just trying to provide some in-depth context for any non-Bears fans or people who don’t intensely analyse the Bears much why the decision of what to do with the #1 overall pick this year isn’t as straightforward as it seems.

The purpose of this post is for me to provide information, and for you to come to your own conclusion. I think sports media in general has a pretty bad case of groupthink, but reddit is especially bad at it.

Prelude:

  • Justin Fields is a very unique player. If you want to find highlights that make him look like a top 7 QB, there are plenty of instances on film. If you want to say he misses reads and bails out of the pocket early, there also are too many instances on film.

    • My point is this: whatever narrative there is about Justin Fields, there probably is film to back it up, good or bad. There isn’t some clear answer you are going to find by saying “just watch the film bro”, and then only looking at 3-4 clips.

  • How I’m going to set up this post:

    • First I’m going to go through the undeniably good, and then the undeniably bad. Then I’ll go through the difficult situation in Chicago a bit and address some very important questions.
    • Also, I’m going to compare Fields to Lamar, Stroud, and Love a lot in this post. The reasons for this is because Lamar just won his second MVP, and Lamar is the type of QB that Fields could elevate to. I’m including Stroud because the Bears could’ve had him, and Love because of how quickly he developed (and because of all teams ofc he’s on the packers).

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THE GOOD:

  • Lets start off with the obvious, it’s hard to argue he’s not top 3 all time in terms of a rushing QB.

    • An effective rushing QB will always be very valuable from a scheming perspective, as you can get linebackers to play the QB and not a RB, they’ll break to coverage slower, and you can tie up a QB spy and cause more one on one matchups with your receivers.
      • Plays like this and this are proof of defenses overcompensating for Fields’ rushing threat
    • Only 3 QBs have ever had a 1,000 yard rushing season, he is one of them.
    • He holds the single-game QB rushing record with 178 yards
    • Since 2021, Fields leads the entire league in yards per carry
    • On third and fourth down, Fields has 9.2 yards per carry and 71 first downs on 104 carries.
      • On those 71 first downs, he has 878 yards, 12.4 yards per carry and 5 TD

  • DJ Moore.

    • Fields was elite with DJ Moore this year. 8 TD / 0 INT / 74% COMP / 1,109 YDS / 139.07 RTG / 97.1 QBR in 13 games (realistically like 12.5 because Fields was injured and didn’t finish week 6)
      • Moore’s previous season high was 1,193 yards
      • This comes out to 88.7 yards per game and 11.4 yards per target. If Fields had been healthy every game this season and maintained this average, Moore would’ve had 1,508 yards, 10 TD, and tied the Bears single-season receiving record
      • If you exclude the numbers from week 6 when Fields dislocated his thumb and week 16 when Moore missed part of the game with an ankle injury, it comes out to 98.5 yards per game and 12.1 yards per target. This year that would have been the 3rd best YPG in the league, only behind CeeDee and Tyreek.

  • Escaping sacks, pressure, and breaking tackles

  • Arm talent: The arm talent for Fields is certainly there when he does throw. He consistently hits guys in the chest downfield and has one of the prettiest deep balls that I’ve seen.

  • A few throws that probably should have been caught:

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THE BAD:

  • Fumbles: The Justin Fields fumble stats are really weird. He has 38 career fumbles (😳), but he only has lost 11 of them.

    • I’m not sure if the numbers I looked at were 100% right, but through statmuse it seems like league-wide around 56.1% of fumbles result in a turnover. That percentage is probably worse for QBs. For Fields, 28.9% of his fumbles are turnovers.
      • This seems like a remarkably large difference, and I’m not really sure why. The Bears have had center issues the past few years, so there is a small chance that a few botched snaps have been scored as QB fumbles.
    • This season, he had 4 lost fumbles, for 13 total turnovers. This is 1 turnover per game, which isn’t good, but not terrible. This season Mahomes had 1.06 per game, Tua had 1.12, Lawrence had 1.31, Cousins had 1.14, Hurts had 1.18, Goff had .94, and Purdy had .81
    • He also has 41 total turnovers in 40 games, 38 starts.

  • Sacks: This is the most obvious thing holding Justin Fields back.

    • He was sacked 44 times this season with a 10.6% sack rate. That’s 3rd worst in the league for qualified QBs. Additionally, the 10.6% sack rate was the best of his career. He has been sacked 135 times in his career.

  • Passing Stats:

    • I think this is really my biggest concern with Fields, there are just some games where he just doesn’t do anything. He has yet to pass for 3,000 yards in a season, and only has one game with 300+ passing yards.

  • Injuries

    • He has missed time to injury every year of his career so far.

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DA BEARS:

  • Career Record

    • Fields is 10-28 in his career as a starter
    • In 2022, before the Bears traded Roquan Smith, they were 3-5. After the trade the Bears went 0-9 and allowed 31.3 points per game.
      • In 2022 the Chiefs led the league in points per game with 29.2.
      • Two weeks later, Darnell Mooney had a season-ending leg injury.
    • The Bears have won 25% of games that Fields has had 4+ total touchdowns
      • In those games, Fields has only 1 interception and 1 fumble (the fumble was lost)
    • In 5 games, Fields has had 100+ rushing yards. All of those games were losses.
      • Fields had two turnovers in those 5 games
    • The Bears have also won only two games that Fields has had 300+ total yards
      • He averages 2.625 total TD and 1 turnover in these games
    • Fields has had 9 games with a 75+ QBR. Only two games were wins.

  • Luke Getsy

    • It honestly looks like Getsy did his best to break Fields. He was OC from 2022-23, and his prior NFL experience was with Aaron Rodgers and the Packers.
      • I’m going to go more in depth in to the Bears’ scheme later in the post, but I do want to say I think there is a general consensus that Getsy was a bad OC.
    • Getsy’s playcalling this year was rather bizarre, everything just felt very predictable and easy to defend.
      • For example, this play was the result of three consecutive screen passes being called.
    • Also, any game Fields was highly pressured it seemed like Getsy had bad gameplans.
      • For instance, vs the Vikings week 12 he called SIXTEEN passes behind the line of scrimmage. The 2023 vikings blitzed a lot, and instead of attacking the space vacated by the linebackers the gameplan was screens, where there still is man coverage. If you notice on this pass chart, there only were 3 completions 10+ yards down the field. 2 of these 3 came on th…

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