Justin Fields' Mobility Earns Praise
Justin Fields continues elevating his game, piece by piece.
Fields' third straight game without an interception and fourth in five games without one makes it obvious he's taking better care of the football when he's throwing, although his ability to protect it as a runner or in the act of throwing still requires an upgrade.
Fields had his second and third best Pro Football Focus passing grades this season in the last two games, but coach Matt Eberflus likes two parts of Fields' game in particular and they only partially deal with the pass.
For one, Fields is learning better how to use his running to set up the pass with good downfield vision.
"He's done a really good job of late of looking down the field to be able to deliver some passes down the field, which is cool," Eberflus said.
His 39-yard TD pass to DJ Moore against the Lions in the first game was a good example. He made two throws like this in particular on Sunday, and another for a completion to Cole Kmet that was wiped out by a penalty.
The other aspect is how he gets out of trouble leaving the pocket when he picks up first downs on scrambles. This can be valuable this week against Cleveland's pass rush. How he tried to escape the pocket was a problem last time they played the Browns in his first start.
"He's so strong and he's got strong lowers and he's got great balance, as I say, a lot of time with DJ (Moore)," Eberflus said. "He has that as well. He has the ability to put it on guys for 19 yards or as you saw last year, even more than that.
"We're excited about where he is with that, in terms of the first phase of that, looking downfield to complete the passes, and the second phase—when it's not there in situational ball, to make it happen."
The other part of Fields' game not really uncovered until Sunday was his use of cadence to draw the Lions' Aiden Hutchinson offsides for the freebie deep ball to Moore and the go-ahead touchdown. Numerous times this year offensive coordinator Luke Getsy has talked about his high number of cadences and it has even caused problems for Fields at times, but not on the huge pass Sunday to Moore for the 38-yard TD.
"I think Justin has done a great job handling it," center Lucas Patrick said. "This is an intricate cadence, and I'd probably say we might have one of the tougher silent cadences across the league. We do a lot of stuff, and we put a lot on him with run checks, pass checks and understanding how his motion timing affects a snap cadence he wants to use.
"So he kind of pulled it all together in that moment, so credit to him. And even this week we were talking how, I came up to him and I thought cadence was going to be huge this week."
It's not easy to cover up cadence use from opponents with all eyes on the NFL these days.
"With TV copies and how big the league is now, there are microphones everywhere," Patrick said. "So it's a credit to him for honing in on a situation and not just taking information that was in the play but information from a few weeks and executing."
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