I agree 200%. But it has been a point of emphasis since day one with this staff. He’s obviously slow to unable to pull the trigger. He doesn’t even seem to have any concept of throwing it out of bounds to avoid a sack.
The true cause of Fields’ poor play, revealed.
Sad to say, I agree.
This, too. When the Bears had success last year, they were calling runs for Fields. Yes, defenses have adjusted, but the Bears seem to have abandoned the whole idea. And while Fields is clearly not seeing receivers open downfield, he’d be making more plays with both his feet and arm if they re-established him as a threat to run.
I expected so much more.
Not much to say after that KC game. There’s blame for the coaching, to be sure, but it’s become obvious that Fields doesn’t have the combination of vision, mental processing and confidence to be an effective NFL QB.
They’re clearly not the unstoppable powerhouse team that Detroit is.
I’ve noticed in the last couple days that the Fields apologists are starting to really point fingers at the coaches and receivers. Apparently, the receivers are regularly running the incorrect routes with either incorrect alignment or poor spacing. While I think this is definitely happening and a contributing factor, it doesn’t excuse Fields play at all.
The example that illustrates this is the anecdote from the Swift Bowl in KC last week, on Mahomes’ final touchdown to Kelce, there’s been a lot of talk that Travis went completely rogue and ran an improvised route. Mahomes stuck with him and still forced him the ball so he could score for TayTay. This wasn’t a broken play, just Kelce getting himself open.
Similarly, in the Dolphins blowout, in the 1st quarter Tyreek ran the wrong route on a play. He broke open on a deep slant and Tua nailed him in stride for a long TD. Another example where a WR was in the wrong place and the QB still connected. In neither case did the QB totally freeze, act confused and run himself into a sack. Clearly there’s other factors here, but the NFL is not played on tracks. If a QB is completely flummoxed when a WR goes off script that’s not acceptable.
Do we need the coaches to get these WRs to use better fundamentals, absolutely. Is that the root of the problem, I highly doubt it.
I don’t buy it, either. I’ve seen too many examples of receivers being open and Fields not seeming to see them at all. They can’t all be running the wrong routes. He just doesn’t see them until it’s too late to throw them the ball.
I blame the coaches for Fields somehow being worse than last year, but mostly I blame Fields for just not being good enough. No doubt he’s a hard worker and maybe even a dedicated tape study, but it’s not translating to better play and at this point it’s clear that it never will.
I could buy Fields regressing because of wholesale changes at the WR position and those WRs being in the wrong place. I could also buy a regression because of play calling changes intended to force him to throw from the pocket more. But Fields wasn’t close to good last year, yeah, he had some awesome runs, but that wasn’t winning QB play then. Maybe he regressed, or maybe he is the same guy without the runs to distract us. Also, this WR group is better than last year, so when he’s missing guys it’s obvious they are open. Last year he was probably missing the same opportunities but us schmoes couldn’t see it as clearly without 10 yards of separation.
I actually feel sorry for Mooney and Claypool, who are in their walk years. Neither is a star, but they’re decent WRs, and they’re getting the worst showcase possible for their next contracts. DJ Moore must be tearing his hair out, too, but at least he got paid.
As Muhsin Muhammad said 15 years ago, Chicago is “where wide receivers go to die.”
Having DJ Moore in the dynasty league has been less than a joy so far this year. The really frustrating thing is that he was a solid producer for years in Carolina. His quarterbacks were guys like Sam Darnold, and yet he produced.
Having said that, he did score 11.60 fantasy points for me last week, so there is that.
He had a 100 yard game in week 2 and a TD in week 3. So not awesome, but he’s still scraping just enough together to be startable. Which was sort of the deal in Carolina too.
Fair point. I kind of glossed over his week 2 performance (13.4) in my head because I was so traumatized by the 3.5 points he put up in week 1.
If ever there was a time for Fields to show his stuff and engineer a game-winning fourth quarter drive, it was today. He was up against an atrocious defense, and he had played well for the first 40 minutes of the game.
But no, didn’t happen. The fourth quarter was the usual shit-show–a strip-sack that was returned for a touchdown, a horrible intentional grounding penalty, and an interception.
Let the Countdown to Caleb begin.
This was the week the Bears might’ve one I guess.
Yeah … for all his other faults, Fields’ worst might be that he’s allergic to pressure.
I don’t buy that. His entire existence in Chicago is under pressure. He was elite in the CFB playoffs. He’s played like shit at different times in every game and there’s no consistent pattern that he’s failing in close games or late in games. Certainly, the Bears offense is incompetent and incapable of putting together a good late drive (either a 2 minute or 4 minute) but that’s not Fields succumbing to pressure. That’s just a team that can’t get out of it’s own way in the best of times and the added complexity of clock management and situational football seems to break them.
All true, but Fields just doesn’t have the knack for playing better when the game’s on the line. He’s had plenty of opportunities to lead the team to a 4th quarter game-tying or -winning drive and has yet to successfully execute one.
The top QBs make it happen once in a while, even when their teams or coaching aren’t the best. I’d love to see Fields prove he can do it.
Yes he did. Last year he drove the team down the field for the winning TD against Washington and hit Mooney on the goal line right in his hands, who dropped it. That would have been the winning score and it was in his receivers hands over the goal line. The fact that Mooney dropped a pass in his hands was not Justin’s failure. He also threw a perfect pass into St. Brown’s hands on a 4th down pass during what could have been another winning drive, but St. Brown dropped that one as well. Has he done it enough? No. He’s also been on a historically bad team for the last two years.
What seems to be his big issue is handling zone defense. The Packers, the Bucs and the 2nd half Broncos were running almost all zone defense and Justin doesn’t seem able to see, or confident he can hit, the soft spots in the zone. Part of it is the receivers and he need to be on the same page reading things the same way, but that, to me, is the key for the rest of the season. Defenses are going to keep playing us this way until we can show that we can beat it. The same way that pitchers are going to keep throwing down and away sliders until that hitter shows he will lay off them.
OK, the Mooney drop would have been Fields’ only comeback win so far. With the St. Brown drop, there’s no guarantee the Bears would have capitalized by finishing the drive, so I’m not counting that.
And, to be fair, if Flus opted for the field goal, we might have won 31-28 and that would have been Fields’ first successful comeback.
You could just as easily say the Bears have been a mediocre team with a historically bad QB.