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The 33rd Team
2023 NFL Week 1: Justin Fields Running Out of Excuses in Chicago
Derrik Klassen
Week 1 Woes
Fields needs to check three boxes this season to earn the Bears’ trust: prove he can handle more of the offense, make quicker decisions and throw with accuracy. Even checking two of those boxes could be enough to get him over the hump, considering what he offers as a runner.
Fields didn’t check a single one of those boxes against the Green Bay Packers in Week 1.
We don’t even need to look into Fields’ individual play to start to understand how he’s struggled to take the next step so far. Getsy’s play-calling says it all.
For one, Fields was barely asked to throw the ball down the field. Fields’ average depth of target (3.7) and average yards to the sticks (-6.7) were both the second lowest in the league through the afternoon slate of games. Only Desmond Ridder was worse in both categories, and it was painfully obvious watching that game how little the Atlanta Falcons trust Ridder right now.
‘Baby-Proofed’ Offense
It goes deeper than the stats. So many of Getsy’s calls are intended to protect Fields from himself. For instance, many of their drive starters didn’t ask Fields to do a whole lot. In the middle of the first quarter, they opened with a half-field roll to cut the read in half and make things easy for Fields to read out. They opened with a flare screen to the running back two drives later, resulting in a seven-yard loss.
Getsy also didn’t trust Fields to throw on a third-and-7 from the Packers 28-yard line in the first quarter. He called a screen for Chase Claypool, which was tipped and dropped.
Right or wrong, Getsy wanted to guarantee three points instead of seeing what Fields could do. It says a lot about the quarterback when a play-caller effectively surrenders on a gettable third-down situation within scoring range.
It’s not hard to understand why the offense is still so baby-proofed, considering how Fields played on Sunday.
Fields didn’t at all look to have sped up his processing and decision-making. Not only did Fields finish with a 2.95-second time-to-throw average — the fifth-highest in the league so far — but he regularly held onto the ball for an eternity before ultimately scrambling.
Fields struggled all last season with triggering on throws unless they were completely wide open, and it doesn’t look like anything’s changed if the Packers game is any indication.
Same Old Problems
The same is true of Fields’ ball placement. Fields’ best throws are as tantalizing as it gets, but the more time passes, the more those throws feel like a siren song. The down-to-down accuracy still isn’t there. Per Next Gen Stats, Fields’ completion percentage over expectation was -7.2 percent against the Packers, the sixth-worst among the 28 quarterbacks who played before Sunday night.
The concern isn’t that Fields played poorly. It’s that Fields played poorly in the same exact ways we’ve seen him play poorly before. This wasn’t a case of wide receiver drops, miscommunication or an insurmountable scheme disadvantage. It wasn’t a fluke of any kind.
Fields was just the same kind of bad that we have tried to excuse and explain away for the past two seasons. At a certain point, this is who he is.