Frank Coztansa wrote:
Nas wrote:
Brick wrote:
NME wrote:
It’s too early to worry about Fields imo. The fact that he’s shown flashes here and there is a good sign. TurnWith Mitch, we got consistent mediocrity and average play with really bad sprinkled in more often than not so it was hard to see it with Mitch.. with Fields arm talent is obvious at this point which is good. That said, just about everything needs work with him and that’s going to require good coaching and putting talent around him.
I think Fields will ultimately surpass (Pro Bowl QB) Trubisky but they are basically having the same rookie seasons so far.
The stats says (Pro Bowl QB) Trubisky was far better. Especially when it comes to protecting the ball.
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4. Offensive coordinator Bill Lazor had some really interesting comments Thursday.
Bears offensive coordinator Bill Lazor and coach Matt Nagy during training camp at Halas Hall on Aug. 2, 2021.
Bears offensive coordinator Bill Lazor and coach Matt Nagy during training camp at Halas Hall on Aug. 2, 2021. (Jose M. Osorio / Chicago Tribune)
They provided food for thought about the development of young quarterbacks and the track you’d like to see them on when picturing success. Lazor talked about the need for young quarterbacks to be aggressive. It’s the kind of thing that would make a lot of old-school thinkers shudder. An aggressive young quarterback, especially a rookie, would be prone to a bunch of turnovers, right? The game has evolved, though, and the successful offenses are the ones that generate explosive plays, the kind that involve some risk.
When you look back on the four years the Bears had with Mitch (Pro Bowl QB) Trubisky, he wasn’t aggressive very often. There’s a reason the Bears would rank near the bottom of the league in yards per pass attempt, and at least a portion of the time, (Pro Bowl QB) Trubisky was focused on protecting the football and that limited his ability to make big plays. Conversely, Justin Fields has shown a desire to push the ball downfield, especially of late, although this game wasn’t a great example and he left early with the injury.
“You want to minimize the turnovers, right?” Lazor said. “You have a better chance of winning the game if you have zero turnovers. If you go through the year with zero turnovers, you probably don’t have enough big plays out of it, so there’s that balance. You want an aggressive player. You can’t play cautious. So there is that balance, and when a guy comes into the league or when you first start coaching a guy, you have to find where is he on that scale, that spectrum of being aggressive and being too cautious.
“Then you just kind of work it and tweak it and there’s no one simple answer to it. The fact that a rookie will make the throws when guys are covered, to me, is a positive and it helps you get more big plays. I know we’ve talked about it in here. We need more big plays. So we need him to make the throws, and some weeks you’ll play against zone teams where there aren’t going to be as many as those. The windows maybe are tight but different than when you play man (coverage) teams and guys are going to be ‘NFL open’ at the most. You don’t expect them to be open.
“So I’m encouraged that he’ll make the throws, that he’s not hesitant, that he understands what it’s going to look like when it’s time to pull the trigger, and I think it’s only going to get better. And as he plays with the same guys over and over, he’ll also learn from them: What does it look like when this receiver is matched up one-on-one with the corner and is going deep? And I can throw it out the other side? Some of that is just being with the guys too.”
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Lazor said in his experience, when a quarterback comes into the league and is conservative, it’s difficult to break him from that mold. Of course, finding an aggressive-minded quarterback who isn’t reckless is tricky, and no one should know that better than Bears fans.
“My history would tell me that it’s very hard to talk a guy into losing caution,” Lazor said. “If he’s cautious, he’s going to have a hard time getting a ton of production in the NFL. If he’s reckless, you’re going to turn the ball over a lot. But if he’s aggressive and smart and willing to be coached, then you feel like, ‘OK, we can help him find just that right area.’
“In the old days ... you could play ebb-and-flow football, and Bill Parcells wrote in his book, ebb-and-flow football, you punt it to them and they punt it to you. It’s gotten to a point in the NFL you could only win those games if the other team is trying to do the same thing. So (with) cautious quarterbacks, it’s harder and harder in the NFL today.”
Parcells recently chatted with Dan Shaughnessy of the Boston Globe about the development of New England Patriots rookie quarterback Mac Jones. Parcells is the last Patriots coach to use a rookie quarterback when he played Drew Bledsoe in 1993.
“(Jones) is taking care of the ball and you had control of the game from beginning to end,” Parcells said. “You can’t ask anything else of a quarterback. If you can play like that, you’re going to win a lot of games. I really think they’ve got a good chance. I really do. You don’t want to get a rookie quarterback in a situation where they are playing from behind all the time. It’s hard enough when you’re a veteran to do that. For a rookie, it’s really hard.
“The main thing you want to emphasize is the game’s about the ball. You’ve got to take care of the ball. You want to emphasize not being careless and not gambling at the wrong time.”
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Jones has done a really nice job under offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels in New England. He has a 94.7 passer rating, 14 touchdown passes and eight interceptions. He has completed 70.2% of his passes. Fields had the one lost fumble Sunday to give him three for the season, and he has thrown eight interceptions, three coming in the meltdown loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. For the most part, he has done a good job of taking care of the football.
“I completely agree with the logic behind what Lazor said,” a veteran NFL personnel man said. “It goes back to the explosives. You’ve got to get explosive plays, and Checkdown Charlies don’t get explosives. There’s such a fine line. Fields is a talented kid. I’ve seen some tape on him this year. If they can channel it, they might have something. There’s probably not enough data sets right now to see if he can toe that line of being aggressive but not reckless as a pocket passer. Everyone knows what he can do with his legs. It’s interesting because he looks like he’s getting better.”
With a rib injury now that could be problematic, especially with a short week before the Bears face the Lions, we’ll have to see what Fields looks like next time he’s available
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