This is becoming an ugly tradition for the Bears.
Not only are they getting poor quarterback play from Justin Fields, but everything they’re doing around him is exacerbating his struggles.
They’ve done this before, most recently with Mitch Trubisky. While he wasn’t good enough independently to live up to the prestige of being the top quarterback drafted in 2017, he also was hampered by a variety of ancillary malfunctions.
Fields’ best passing performance of the season still wasn’t very good Sunday — 11 of 22 for 174 yards and a 76.7 passer rating — and wasn’t enough to win, as the Giants staggered to a 20-12 victory. That’s technically progress, but it’s a tiny step with no promise of a bigger one coming this week against the Vikings.
Everything is wrong right now.
Fields is missing open receivers, and there aren’t an abundance of them anyway. The offensive line isn’t giving him much protection, but he’s not making the most of his time in the pocket when he does get it. Offensive coordinator Luke Getsy isn’t opening up a lot of opportunities for him as a passer, but Fields isn’t doing much to earn his confidence.
The result is that Fields ranks last in completions (34), yardage (471) and passer rating (58.7). Perhaps most alarmingly, he’s at the bottom in completion percentage (50.7) despite playing in an offense that doesn’t take many deep shots.
Bears coach Matt Eberflus cited all the issues in a roundabout way over the last two weeks and was back at it Monday.
He said the offensive line was “good in spots” when it came to pass protection, which is a polite way of saying it was bad most of the time. He highlighted Giants nose tackle Dexter Lawrence having “a pretty good day” with eight pressures and two sacks as he bullied various interior linemen.
Amid that duress, Fields often didn’t seem to have a feel for moving away from the pressure through the middle of the line and buying himself time to throw.
“It’s just pocket presence as he gets more experience,” Eberflus said. “He did a nice job of riding the pocket a couple of times, staying in there and delivering the ball, for sure.
“We talked about those plays... More experience on the job and he’s going to get better at it.”
Eberflus also mentioned a play in which Darnell Mooney ran the wrong route but got open anyway and said Fields needed to adjust and “take what they give you.”
By the way, when the most accomplished and surefooted of the Bears’ wide receivers is making mental mistakes, they’re in real trouble. Mooney said Sunday he got the play wrong twice against the Giants.
Pro Football Focus’s metrics show that the Bears have allowed pressure on the highest percentage of dropbacks and have had the lowest percentage of dropbacks in which the receivers are considered open.
Pro Football Reference charts them allowing pressure on 29.3% of dropbacks and has Fields throwing on target just 43.9% of the time — second-worst in both categories.
The problems are circular among Fields, his passing targets and his line. And there are no obvious solutions.
The line took a hit with left guard Cody Whitehair’s knee injury. The only help coming at wide receiver is the eventual return of N’Keal Harry, but he’s hardly a sure thing.
The deflated numbers this season are tiresome, but the mess carries big-picture consequences, too.
It was paramount for general manager Ryan Poles to assess whether Fields could grow into a franchise quarterback. He’s not playing like one, but Poles didn’t build a roster to facilitate that development.
If it keeps going like this, they face bad outcomes: They either won’t be able to tell how good he is, or they’ll decide to reboot at quarterback in the draft. Either scenario simply slows down what already feels like a crawling rebuild.
