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BREAKDOWN: A modest defense of Chicago Bears QB Justin Fields

Jordan SiglerBy 9 Mins Read
Justin Fields

Justin Fields is in a bad situation.

Justin Fields constitutes very little of the Chicago Bears’ problems. But the Chicago Bears are becoming a considerable hurdle for Fields. The second-year quarterback hasn’t thrown for over 200 yards in a game this season. The Bears passing attack ranks 32nd in the NFL. Fields has said the passing stats don’t matter, but those numbers are causing Bears fans and local media to flip on him.

One has to wonder what the local media and fanbase were supposed to expect this season. Before August, the national media was prescient that the Bears’ talent surrounding Fields was insufficient for his progress. Bears fans and media cried out about some bias against Chicago.

Four weeks in and after seeing the results, they turn their venom onto the man who’s been put in the worst situation in the NFL. That statement is not hyperbole; as Brad Spielberger with Pro Football Focus documented, the Bears’ pass blocking and wide receivers are an anomaly of terrible. (PFF ranked the Bears’ offensive line 31st and their wide receivers 32nd before the season.)

The Giants game in Week 4 was Justin Fields’ best game of 2022

Justin Fields had his best game of the season in Week 4 against the Giants. He did incredibly well, given the pressure he was under. Former NFL quarterback Trent Dilfer broke down Fields’ performance against the Giants on Parker & Spiegel. Dilfer thought Fields did exceptionally well with what the Bears needed him to do. Fields finished with 226 combined yards through the air and ground. When given time in the pocket, he made nice throws. Here’s one where Fields gets Darnell Mooney involved early in the passing game.

Notice the separation Mooney doesn’t give Fields, but Fields is able to tight rope a ball into the hands of the third-year receiver. This wasn’t the only tight window Fields was asked to throw into Sunday. Fortunately, his accuracy was on in this play. But in many plays this season, Fields doesn’t have the luxury of being perfectly accurate as he’s under duress.

The offensive line is struggling to pass protect for Justin Fields

Justin Fields was sacked six times in Week 4. The offensive line that has been put out for the Bears this season is a league embarrassment. Fields didn’t have much chance to make plays happen as he’s playing behind a line where the center, Sam Mustipher, doesn’t understand how to defend against a blitz.

Rookie Braxton Jones looks like a fifth-rounder.

Lucas Patrick, who general manager Ryan Poles picked, plays the guard spot worse than the player his staff seems to pick on since OTAs, Teven Jenkins. Patrick just stands up and gets bull-rushed into giving up a sack.

Mustipher again.

 

 

Justin Fields didn’t have much help from his wide receivers

So Justin Fields saw a lot of of pressure. However, there were plenty of times Fields saw pressure, and ran out of the pocket to keep a play alive that his receivers dropped it.

Fields has two plays that dropped in succession on a critical drive in the third quarter. The first is by tight end Trevon Wesco.

In the next play, on third down, Fields, targets Dante Pettis. Once again, no luck getting a completion.

Then there are times when his three downfield targets aren’t open.

This isn’t the last time we’ll see no one open downfield. Because that happened in one of the few times Fields threw in the red zone against the Giants.

But Justin Fields missed Mooney because he can’t read a defense!

There was a lot of talk about this picture following the Giants game.

The complaint from passersby looking at the still image is that Justin Fields should have seen Mooney in the top middle of the picture for an easy touchdown. Let’s remember the context of this play. It’s third-and-ten. The last play ended with a tipped pass.

Fox television footage of the game shows Fields reading the defense before this play. It’s a point/traffic defense bunch. (Hybrid play with man to man on the outside, 1st inside, and 1st outside zone for the middle defenders on this play.)

Fields taps his helmet and gives a command. Typically this can mean an audible in many NFL offenses. Eberflus admitted on that play Fields was coached to hit the check-down or run in that defense. Fields head doesn’t turn left to read progressions on that play. Remember, the offense the Bears are running is an offshoot of the Kyle Shanahan playbook.

As documented in the 2019 San Francisco 49ers Complete Offensive Manual, by author Bobby Peters, Shanahan’s offense runs a “dual” read. In that read, the quarterback would decide pre-snap or after the safety rotation post-snap what side the offensive play is going to. Here, Fields stuck with the right side of the field, he saw he had the room to get the first down, and he did. (Per the section below, Fields scrambling was the Bears’ best third-down offense.)

Not a bad play at all. Very few quarterbacks in the league could make that play. And Bears fans who have mastered Madden with an All 22 camera angle complain Fields is not the guy because he doesn’t hit Mooney there.

Justin Fields doesn’t control the critical coaching decisions, like, say, the red zone

Justin Fields was criticized for not doing enough to win. Fair enough, I guess. However, I’d be more critical about his performance in Week 2 in Green Bay than against the Giants. Most of the reasons the Bears lost Sunday were outside of his control. His roster, from the general manager seat, is one important one. On the field, his coaches didn’t help. Let’s look at the offense first. Fields drove the team down the field with his arm and legs, but the team ran the ball in the red zone with no success.

Running Back Khalil Herbert had five rushes in the red zone. According to Stats Info Solutions, Herbert averaged an EPA of -.34 yards per rushing attempt in the red zone against the Giants. On third down, the Bears just got stuffed. (In general, third-down runs by a Bears running back were stuffed by the Giant’s defense. According to SIS, Herbert had two busted plays on third down, with an average EPA of -1.40. Passing on third also had an even worse overall negative EPA in Week 4. The Bears’ best play on third down was Fields scrambling, where they had an average EPA of 1.44 with two “boom” plays.

Here’s one drive that I think is critical of the problems of Getsy’s offense. The Giants appear to know what’s coming on every play. No motion is utilized to throw the giants off with 7 in the box. Three pass catchers on the right side,, and the Giants aren’t worried about a pass play coming.

The next play moves the tight end to the right side as the Bears run weak side. Again, no hole for Herbert.

Third down, the Bears attempt to pass. Justin Fields has no one to throw to once again and no lane for his feet to take off.

Getsy has been reliant on the run in other critical situations. Take the third-down-and-two on the Bears’ penultimate drive. The Bears’ skinny line of gutless wonders can’t get a push, much like in Green Bay.

Not that Larry Borom was of much help there.

So after that play, the Bears punt the ball. A punt that was described as “cowardly” by the surrender index, even after the game, the trumpet of the H.I.T.S. philosophy bragged to the media that the loser mentally was a victory in his eyes. And it worked until Velus Jones Jr., the 25-year-old rookie drafted in the third round to help Fields, who still hasn’t seen a snap on offense this season, muffed the punt return.

But yeah, Bears fans expected Justin Fields to overcome that to beat the Giants. This city might not have the patience to find a franchise quarterback in the draft. Poles might need to find a mid-level quarterback the Bears can overpay for.

Justin Fields can’t fix the offense this year

By now, it’s pretty clear what’s going on with the passing offense. The Bears don’t trust Justin Fields to throw more because Fields doesn’t trust his offense to keep a clean pocket or catch the ball. For all of the reasons shown above. It’s hard not to have happy feet when you envision a career like David Carr. Now national analysts are parroting what I had said before the season about Fields and the roster, that it would be impossible to give Fields a fair evaluation this season. This puts the Bears behind in knowing if he’s their guy or not.

The roster cannot be improved this season enough to help Fields. There are too many issues on the offensive line and at wide receiver. It’s not going to quiet the meatheads who don’t care about talent, but this should have been expected before the season by looking at the roster. Desmond Ridder might be a more talented quarterback than Stetson Bennett, but he’s not going to score more than six points on Alabama in playoffs with the talent deficiency between the Bearcats and the Crimson Tide.

When Poles took defense with his first two picks and a special team’s wide receiver in the third, he was giving up on the offense for this season. The Bears didn’t have enough cap space to patch the offense to an acceptable level for an NFL quarterback. Justin Fields may not be the “guy” for the Bears. But there’s no way of knowing that this season.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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I'm a writer and journalist. I cover the NFL, NHL, NBA, and other sports for, Athlon Sports, ChiCitySports, and Gridiron Heroics. My craft has been syndicated nationally on Yardbarker and MSN.

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