Deadly Accuracy on Display from Justin Fields
It was merely one offseason practice of several, without pads and much of the time without a defense opposing him, but Justin Fields picked an ideal time to have "a day."
The rookie quarterback was on while running the backups against a backup defense at Bears OTAs on Wednesday and the fact he did it during one of the days when media got to see the workouts only served to generate more enthusiasm.
"I thought he spun the ball well," Bears coach Matt Nagy said.
The play leading to Nagy's comment was an extremely deep ball from the pocket to wide receiver Damiere Byrd down the sideline. Byrd had gained a step beyond the coverage but the effortless way Fields got the throw off was possibly the most impressive aspect of the play.
"He has that mentality of rip your heart out," Nagy said. "And so there were a couple of plays in there—and not just today but other days—where these quarterbacks are staying aggressive.
"And you got to see a taste of that today with Justin and he made the nice throw to Damiere down the sideline and that ball just took off. We talk about air time, air time meaning when the wide receiver looks like he's covered to everybody in the stadium but when that ball touches the top of the stadium and starts coming down the wide receiver separates and that's what happened on that ball. And he made a hell of a catch."
The deep passes apparently have been coming during OTAs when media hasn't been allowed in to view practice. Darnell Mooney sees it as a particular strength Fields has because he puts it out in front of the receiver to chase it.
"I mean I've caught one or two deep balls from him and the very first one that he threw up to me I was smiling mid-route of just seeing the ball in the air and just how, where it was placed," Mooney said. "And, like I said man, he's very accurate with his ball and he understands exactly where he wants to place the ball."
The deep one wasn't the only big throw Fields completed on the day. He had a nice deeper completion over the middle to Riley Ridley, a toss over the middle to J.P. Holtz placed where no one on the defense could touch it, and another shorter throw so accurate and well timed that it actually allowed Rodney Adams to turn and run upfield.
When was the last time a Bears receiver could get yards after the catch?
It wasn't a perfect day. Fields dropped a snap. So, too, did Andy Dalton. And the veteran starter also threw interceptions to Marqui Christian and Tashaun Gipson. He had another pass knocked down at the line.
Of course, Dalton is facing a collection of starters and second-team players, and not players who might be on the practice squad the way Fields is.
When Dalton is playing, Fields is trying to make strides with "mental reps" in the offense while communicating with passing game coordinator/quarterbacks coach John DeFilippo.
"So, his command right now is what he does is he sits back there with Flip, when Andy is running the show," Nagy said. "And he's back there repeating every word and he's flipping it and he's going through in his mind how to call the play—like he's in the huddle.
"The big part of that is getting the right personnel, understanding the formations, where's the ball at. It's on the left hash, right hash, middle of the field, first wide vision. And so he's going through all of that. I thought today he had a real good day of seeing that."
Not to mention, a good day of throwing it.
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