Justin Fields has a separated nonthrowing shoulder; on pace to return vs Packers

[CKSteeler]

9 minutes ago, Sugashane said:

You talk of his ability as a runner but ONLY look at passing yards to inflate your argument. Look at total yards. Over his last 7 weeks he put up 1811 yards for an average of 258.7 yards per game. Quite a difference there too, right? He did that with a bottom 5 OL in the league.

Because no one is arguing that what he is doing as a runner isn't impressive in some sense? It has been stated quite clearly what I'm criticizing Fields for in every one of my posts. But he's a QB, and I still expect my QB's to throw the ball. And with all that success on the ground, he should be getting some of the easiest looks from defense to throw it well. He isn't throwing it well, and there are some stubborn Bears fans who refuse to come to terms with that.

And let's reiterate - NO QB who has relied predominantly on their rushing ability has ever won anything of note. Maybe we'll see that change in the next decade, but when it comes time to face the best defenses on the biggest stages, those QB's tend to wilt. They also don't have the longest careers.

[Forge]

Full participant in practice today. Looks like he may be good to go for the Packers game 

[Sugashane]

5 minutes ago, CKSteeler said:

Because no one is arguing that what he is doing as a runner isn't impressive in some sense? It has been stated quite clearly what I'm criticizing Fields for in every one of my posts. But he's a QB, and I still expect my QB's to throw the ball. And with all that success on the ground, he should be getting some of the easiest looks from defense to throw it well. He isn't throwing it well, and there are some stubborn Bears fans who refuse to come to terms with that.

We all agree he is raw as a passer. We are also all aware that with his OL he isn't going to get to sit back and allow him to try picking apart a defense. Hell their best asset is run blocking and only two of them are actually good at that. When Mooney was the #1 that puts a REALLY low ceiling to your passing attack. We get it, but not even Mahomes or Allen would not pass for 4000 yards in a season with this team. It would take 700 passes and they wouldn't survive behind this OL long enough to even sniff that. No DC in the league gets any sort of stress thinking about anyone around Fields. He has elevated a terrible squad to be competitive when they shouldn't be. Now if in year 3 and 4 if he doesn't have more progress as a passer, especially as the surrounding talent should be extremely easy to upgrade, then cut him loose and move on to the next guy. But the Bears at least give the kid a fair shake.

5 minutes ago, CKSteeler said:

And let's reiterate - NO QB who has relied predominantly on their rushing ability has ever won anything of note. Maybe we'll see that change in the next decade, but when it comes time to face the best defenses on the biggest stages, those QB's tend to wilt. They also don't have the longest careers.

And we don't want him to be a predominant rusher either. Growing as a passer and even being an above average starting passer plus his legs would make him a hell of a threat. But there's a LOT for the Bears to add before there is any chance of winning anything of note regardless of QB right now. 

[Sugashane]

6 minutes ago, Forge said:

Full participant in practice today. Looks like he may be good to go for the Packers game 

WR corps of Claypool, ESB and N'Keal Harry... Think GB will agree to a game of basketball instead? 🤮

[G]

On 11/27/2022 at 9:16 AM, JohnChimpo said:

Wow. I had no idea that guy was still around.

We were hiding him on the Raiders. Gruden's pet project. 

[JohnChimpo]

2 hours ago, G said:

We were hiding him on the Raiders. Gruden's pet project. 

Gruden’s a strange guy.

[CKSteeler]

4 hours ago, Sugashane said:

But the Bears at least give the kid a fair shake.

Surround him with talent. I don't think that makes his passing issues go away. He needs a Josh Allen type leap in his fundamentals and mechanics along with some other things. He doesn't see the field well right now.

[Malfatron]

Good. Definitely want to play fields

[CWood21]

21 hours ago, Sugashane said:

You talk of his ability as a runner but ONLY look at passing yards to inflate your argument. Look at total yards. Over his last 7 weeks he put up 1811 yards for an average of 258.7 yards per game. Quite a difference there too, right? He did that with a bottom 5 OL in the league.

Legitimately asking, is there an argument that he's a good passer right now?  You can blame the OL or the WR or the coaching staff, but he's been a bottom third passer this year.  He's been absolutely dynamic as a runner, but he's been miserable as a passer.  The easiest comparison would be Lamar Jackson.

Justin Fields: 136-228 (59.6%), 1642 passing yards (7.2 YPA), 13 passing TD, 8 INT, 8 fumbles, 4.87 ANY/A (11 GP)
Lamar Jackson: 200-322 (62.1%), 2231 passing yards (6.9 YPA), 17 passing TD, 7 INT, 4 fumbles, 6.22 ANY/A (11 GP)

Lamar Jackson has been better than him by a pretty significant margin.  He's not a better passer than Lamar Jackson.

[Sugashane]

1 hour ago, CWood21 said:

Legitimately asking, is there an argument that he's a good passer right now?  You can blame the OL or the WR or the coaching staff, but he's been a bottom third passer this year.  He's been absolutely dynamic as a runner, but he's been miserable as a passer.  The easiest comparison would be Lamar Jackson.

Justin Fields: 136-228 (59.6%), 1642 passing yards (7.2 YPA), 13 passing TD, 8 INT, 8 fumbles, 4.87 ANY/A (11 GP)
Lamar Jackson: 200-322 (62.1%), 2231 passing yards (6.9 YPA), 17 passing TD, 7 INT, 4 fumbles, 6.22 ANY/A (11 GP)

Lamar Jackson has been better than him by a pretty significant margin.  He's not a better passer than Lamar Jackson.

Significant margin? Really? Are you just looking at volume stats? Of course Jackson will have higher TDs and yards when he has thrown the ball over 90 times more. Completion percentage is less than 3% difference, lower YPA for Jackson, Fields has a higher TD%, Jackson has a better INT %, etc. All while running a horrible scheme for the players on the offense for the first quarter of the season.

Still a poor comparison to be honest though. Too small of a sample size. Lamar is in his 5th year and has had the offense revolving around his skillset for 4 of those years. Fields has only 6-7 games where they weren't trying to force him to be a pocket passer with a crap OL and WRs.  Do you think Jackson's numbers would remotely the same if he was in a traditional offense? I don't. Roman also has already ran a similar offense to force the defense to account for the QBs legs when he had Kaep, but Getsy is in his first year calling plays and changed his offense in the middle of the season. Even if only extrapolating those 6-7 games though it will be too small a sample, defenses will adjust and he will have to adjust. I'm wanting to go out for at least 16-17 games of THIS offense to give me an idea.

 

I'll compare your numbers to Jackson's last year

Justin Fields: 136-228 (59.6%), 1642 yards (7.2 YPA), 13 passing TD, 8 INT, 8 fumbles, 4.87 ANY/A (11 GP)

Lamar Jackson: 246-382 (64.4%), 2882 yards (7.5 ypa), 16 TDs, 13 INTs, 6 fumbles, 5.78 ANY/A (12 GP)

- Both Jackson's rating and QBR were career lows, INT% was a career high and he had a career high 38 sacks

 

Fields has been sacked 40 times in 11 games, with over 100 less dropbacks than Jackson had last year. Anyone simply saying "Justin can't read a field" is just parroting what someone else wrote online. He isn't a 1 read and run QB, the narrative is false and laughable. He DOES need to speed it up but shockingly almost all QBs do over their first 3-4 years. There is clearly more going on than just him. And if Fields has been miserable as a passer, then Jackson been close to that for the last two years, which I fully disagree with. There is more than - and I'm not speaking about you directly - looking at totals and ignoring volume or style of offense. Thre 2nd and 3rd best players of the Bears skill players are Monty and Herbert, so they run more than they pass. I'd take them over the groupings of Freeman/Murray or Drake/Edwards/Hill. Why wouldn't the Bears run more? And if we compare who they are passing to, and BAL has been criminal with who they have put with him for the most part, is anyone going to take Mooney over Andrews? Legit one of the best TEs in the game vs one of the better #2 WRs in the league? I'd be shocked if anyone did, if so they're likely someone who just hates BAL. lol

 

Honestly the best comparison would be between both Jackson rookie year and Fields' 2022 season. Both offenses were forced to drastically adjust, both QBs were learning their offense for the first time, and  Fields has the better completion %, Jackson has a better YPG (149 vs 159)*, Fields has the higher TD%, Jackson has the better INT%, Fields has the better rating and QBR, etc.

*Also I am doing YPG based off of starts, I'm not diluting Jackson's numbers because he got to pass like 10 times over the first half the season.

 

There is a lot more to unpack than just looking at base stats, which most are simply too lazy to do. That year Jackson also had Crabtree, Andrews, Brown, Snead to pass to. Not a great group but better than Mooney, Kmet, ESB, and Pettis. Also Jackson had the luxury of having a top defense his first 3 years. Makes it a hell of a lot easier to know your offense will give up only 18ppg compared to the 24-25ppg the Bears have averaged. Jackson didn't NEED to be as aggressive and could be conservative to play field position rather than having to outplay his own bottom 10 defense's failings.

 

I'm not crowing Fields as a future MVP or even saying he is a franchise QB. He was set up to fail by that hack Nagy who seemingly was just ensuring Pace was going down with him his rookie year (which I support honestly, both were given one year too long), and now has a cast of misfits that most will likely not even be spot starters in 2-3 years around him. He is getting points on the board, which is WAY more important to me than how he does it. I'm fine giving at least another 2 years to see if he is the real deal, people saying he absolutely is or absolutely isn't are most likely just going off confirmation bias or may be simply too stupid and/or impatient to make informed decisions. Again, not singling anyone here out, but... just look at Facebook groups... lol

 

[y*so*blu]

So we're going to see two quarterbacks who should probably be sitting the rest of the year.

Neither the Bears nor the Packers are making the playoffs for one thing. In Chicago's case they've seen enough of Fields' abilities that they should know how to build around him for next season. In Green Bay's case, neither they nor Rodgers can benefit from any additional playing time or the injury risk it brings. They should move on to Jordan Love; Rodgers should move on to signing with another team while he's still got some mojo left.

Edited December 2, 2022 by y*so*blu

[Sugashane]

4 minutes ago, y*so*blu said:

So we're going to see two quarterbacks who should probably be sitting the rest of the year.

Neither the Bears nor the Packers are making the playoffs for one thing. In Chicago's case they've seen enough of Fields' abilities that they should know how to build around him for next season. In Green Bay's case, neither they nor Rodgers can benefit from any additional playing time or the injury risk it brings. They should move on to Jordan Love; Rodgers should move on to signing with another team while he's still got some mojo left.

I was all for putting Fields on IR. Help secure the top 2-3 pick. With Mooney and EJax going down this team is REALLY lacking no though. My concern is he tries too hard to play hero ball because it is GB and getting busted up. We have been 1 pick away from Aaron donald and Leonard Williams because we won a worthless game while having zero benefit to winning. I don't want to keep doing that. But Bears will likely fail to fail properly, per usual.

[Malfatron]

8 hours ago, Sugashane said:

I was all for putting Fields on IR. Help secure the top 2-3 pick. With Mooney and EJax going down this team is REALLY lacking no though. My concern is he tries too hard to play hero ball because it is GB and getting busted up. We have been 1 pick away from Aaron donald and Leonard Williams because we won a worthless game while having zero benefit to winning. I don't want to keep doing that. But Bears will likely fail to fail properly, per usual.

Dont you want to keep the all time win record this weekend?

[Bigbear72]

8 hours ago, Malfatron said:

Dont you want to keep the all time win record this weekend?

Honestly, the all-time win record is inconsequential tomorrow if we can take it back next year and moving forward because we were able to secure superior talent and properly develop it. I think from an emotional standpoint, we as fans tend to have illogical desires because of the inherent need for immediate gratification. I'm more of a long-term and big-picture person myself but to each their own.

[Sugashane]

12 hours ago, Malfatron said:

Dont you want to keep the all time win record this weekend?

GB took that with Rodgers a few years ago. I honestly couldnt care less if we go down one more. Franchise incompetence and terrible management of the QB has killed us since the 80s Bears dissolved. Once GB got Favre and White it has been downhill for Chicago.

Get this - Before Trubisky in 2017 the last QB drafted in the top 2 rounds was Grossman in 2003. Before that was McNown in 1999. Then you have to go all the way back to Jim Harbaugh in 1987 for the next one. As maligned as the position has been for this franchise they took 1 legitimate swing in each decade in the draft since the 90s. Naturally at the very end of the 90s. That's why I get so ticked at this franchise and its fans. I have no issue with moving up a pick to get Tru, it was wasteful but if they got a franchise QB for 15 years then WGAF? I'm frustrated Pace missed on the HC hires (both) and the pick. Now people want to drop Fields when we have Big Sky talent around him. Prime Brady, Manning or Mahomes might have us at .500, or their lack of mobility might have them on IR by week 5. lol

 

4 hours ago, Bigbear72 said:

Honestly, the all-time win record is inconsequential tomorrow if we can take it back next year and moving forward because we were able to secure superior talent and properly develop it. I think from an emotional standpoint, we as fans tend to have illogical desires because of the inherent need for immediate gratification. I'm more of a long-term and big-picture person myself but to each their own.

This is well said. I'm looking long-term but with incremental periods within each. I want us to put a ton of talent around Fields and let him prove he is the guy. If he isn't a top 10 QB then his when his contract comes up I would look at franchising and trading. Don't get emotionally attached, it is a business. If he takes a reasonable salary then sign him, but these megadeals can only work if the QB is good enough to overcome their salary cap burdens.

If he flops then you let him walk. Regardless at that point you should have a ton of talent and go after the potential franchise QB in the draft, then don't have to waste two of his financial golden years like we have to Fields (and one year with Tru). Maybe a QB you drafted looks solid and develops like Cousins, or you go all in for your guy.