Justin Fields needs to let it fly.
He knows it and his coaches do, too. That’s what the Bears quarterback, head coach Matt Eberflus and offensive coordinator Luke Getsy talked about when they debriefed after Sunday’s 38-20 shellacking by the rival Packers.
“I felt like I was a little bit too conservative at times during the game,” Fields said before Wednesday’s practice.
Why?
“I’m not sure,” he said.
He better figure it out, fast. The Buccaneers await Sunday.
Fields’ wasn’t being critical of Getsy’s play-calling; rather, he was upset about his own decision-making. Getsy called screens, sure, but Fields was the one who missed opportunities to throw deep with receivers open. He instead checked down — running backs caught 11 of Fields’ 24 passes — or ran it himself. No one on the team had more carries or rushing yards than Fields.
Fields’ performance was the least aggressive of any Week 1 quarterback. It was also one of the worst.
Per NFL Next Gen Stats:
• No one threw less often into tight coverage — defined as having a defender within one yard of the receiver — than Fields. His aggressiveness rate was an NFL-low 2.7%.
• Only one player, the Falcons’ Desmond Ridder, threw shorter passes. Fields’ 3.3 intended air yards — the vertical distance traveled from the line of scrimmage on both completions and incompletions — was the second-shortest in the NFL.
• Fields threw only four passes beyond 10 yards: an interception, an incompletion and two completions — and one touchdown — to Darnell Mooney.
Fields has the best selection of receiving options of his three years with the Bears. He needs to act like it.
Sunday, he targeted DJ Moore twice — and once more on a two-point conversion that doesn’t count, statistically — and Chase Claypool two other times. Moore had two catches, Claypool none.
On the first play of the second quarter, Claypool lined up left and ran a post route into an open window inside cornerback Rasul Douglas. Fields faked a handoff, looked toward Claypool and instead decided to scramble for eight yards.
He needs to trust his receivers – even the mercurial Claypool.
“Definitely with guys like DJ and Chase on the outside, if we do have one-on-one on the outside, potentially throwing it up and seeing what happens,” Fields said. “With them, they’re great playmakers and they can most likely come up with a 50-50 ball. Definitely want to give them more chances deep down the field.”
The Bears can call deep shots, but Fields has to make the decision to throw it.
“When you’re taking your shot down the field on a 50-50 ball, you’ve gotta let it ride,” Eberflus said. “If the [cornerback] is really high on top of the [receiver], which I think was the case a couple times, then it’s just the discernment of the quarterback. If he’s real high on him, then you just go ahead and go to your next read.
“But we certainly have some guys that can get some 50-50 balls. If you feel good about where the location is of the corner, we’re gonna go send it up.”
Asked whether that was a point of emphasis for Fields this week, Eberflus said his staff preaches it every week.
“That’s just all part of the read,” he said. “When we’re talking about taking shots down the field, that’s just how you read it. We’re always coaching that.”
Fields’ accuracy on intermediate throws were 2.2% better than league average last year, per Pro Football Focus, and his throws of 20-plus yards were 12.1 percent worse. Those numbers should improve with better receivers on the roster — or at least that was the plan.
Fields’ checkdowns were in part because of the Packers’ scheme; they played zone all but one snap, leaving fewer obvious one-on-one matchups for his receivers.
Fields needs to adjust. He knows that most teams will try to play him the same way — zone defense typically helps to contain scrambling quarterbacks.
“That’s probably how most defenses are built nowadays in the NFL,” Fields said. “They want to protect against explosives, take away the deep plays and stuff like that.
“So of course we want to be able to take calculated shots throughout the game. And when we call those plays, you just got to take ’em up and throw it up there. A receiver might have to make a contested catch to make a big play.”
But first, Fields has to get it there.
