While Bears quarterback Justin Fields was recovering from his dislocated thumb, coach Matt Eberflus gave him a challenge. In true Eberflus form, it was wrapped in a clever gimmick.
“The good coaches I’ve been around have the ability to image in people’s minds what they want to do going into the future,” Eberflus said.
It wasn’t an acronym, like his H.I.T.S. principle. Rather, it was a number: 200. He wanted Fields’ box score to read 200: at least two touchdowns — either in the air or on the ground — plus no turnovers and no sacks.
“That’s pretty much my goal every game,” Fields said this week. “Sacks, they put us behind the sticks, of course, and you never want to turn the ball over to give the other team a short field. So definitely trying to avoid the turnovers and sacks.”
Fields hasn’t hit the “200” mark yet this season. League-wide, it’s happened only 29 times in 481 games. The Bills’ Josh Allen, the Chargers’ Justin Herbert, the Packers’ Jordan Love, the Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes, the Rams’ Matthew Stafford, the Texans’ C.J. Stroud and the Dolphins’ Tua Tagovailoa have each done it twice this season. The Cowboys’ Dak Prescott has done it three times.
Those players live up to the standard that the Bears expect of Fields. General manager Ryan Poles will have to decide at the end of the season whether he believes Fields can reach that level — or if USC’s Caleb Williams, the likely No. 1 overall pick, has a better chance to get there.
With two games left this season — the Bears play their final home game Sunday against the Falcons — Fields has yet to position himself as the team’s slam-dunk quarterback of the future. But Fields is improving, in part because he’s been conscious of taking care of the ball.
In his first six games, Fields had a 3.7 interception percentage and a 12.9 sack percentage. In his last five — since returning from the thumb injury — he’s cut those figures almost in half; he’s been intercepted on 1.9% of his passes and sacked on 7% of his dropbacks. He’s thrown one interception that wasn’t a Hail Mary.
“Any way you look at it, [sacks have] gone way down,” quarterbacks coach Andrew Janocko said. “It’s a testament to him in how he’s getting the ball out, how he feels the progression and how he’s feeling the rush without just ditching it for no reason, too.”
His passing production has been down, though — he had 11 touchdowns through the air in his first six games and four in his last five. His passer rating before the injury was 91.6 — and 77.2 since. The Bears like how he’s been able to look down the field for completions when scrambling; that wasn’t happening at the start of the season.
“There’s a lot of good actual metrics there than you can look at, but there’s also things we look at that you see on the tape that you didn’t see last year, you didn’t see at the beginning of the season …” Janocko said. “Think back to the game in Tampa, and watching him go through progressions and watching his footwork and how he’s progressed. And his completions now that we didn’t see earlier in the season.”
His conversation with Eberflus is one reason why.
“They sat down, they talked about it, the importance of [sacks and turnovers],” offensive coordinator Luke Getsy said. “Again, he just gave him that mindset of taking care of the football, making sure that we limit the sacks. And I think since that point Justin’s done a fabulous job of dealing with both those.”
