USA Today
Poor Justin Fields Rankings Pour Forth
OTAs have a week to go, minicamp is coming and then the great respite until training camp.
So it's that time of year for the analysts and mathematicians to trot out their best projections for Justin Fields and other quarterbacks. For the Bears, this tradition usually means disrespecting their passer, and of course it has happened again.
When Chris Simms is giving you the best of your ratings, then your season is probably already halfway down the drain.
Simms, son of Giants legend Phil Simms, has spit out a few of his annual ranking of quarterbacks for Pro Football Talk and NBC Sports.
The good news is Simms has Fields ranked higher than he did coming out of college. Will wonders never cease?
Fields is Simms' 23rd ranked quarterback.
It sounds bad but considering he rated Fields 39th last year and expected him to be a bust, it's actually progress.
Simms put Fields just behind Zach Wilson of the Jets (22nd) and Daniel Jones of the Giants (21st) but just ahead of Trevor Lawrence (24th) and Jalen Hurts (25th).
A year ago at the season's start he had Lawrence rated 28th, Jones 26th and Wilson 27th. So at least Fields is gaining.
Simms also had Sam Darnold ranked 19th last year and now he's 32nd. So perhaps Fields should feel good about being 23rd after being 39th.
Pro Football Network has released a similar quarterback ranking and put Fields 24th, one behind Lawrence and one ahead of Davis Mills, but three ahead of Jones. The same website rated Darnell Mooney 27th among wide receivers, which isn't necessarily terrible but is well below where he ranked both in receiving and yards for wide receivers last year.
Meanwhile, to everyone's amusement, the math majors at Pro Football Focus came out with a charted article projecting second-year quarterback "leaps."
It is more confusing than an upside-down 1040 form. The end result of it is alarming for Bears fans who expect Fields to make that second-year leap many passers enjoy.
Pro Football Focus' Conor McQuiston penned the article revealing reasons to project a so-so season by Fields.
"Justin Fields and Zach Wilson are more concerning," McQuiston wrote, when comparing the accuracy of Fields and Wilson with other second-year QBs, including Lawrence. "Even the most optimistic projections put them only at a solidly above-average passer and on average maintaining improved but subpar outcomes.
"The silver lining is that it seems unlikely they will have much worse outcomes."
He bases this on a series of charts harder to sort through than a corn maze in pea soup fog at 2 a.m. Only someone whose hobby is creating Rorschach tests would enjoy this.
It's an article which should have been headlined "Fun with Parabolas."
If you can't get enough of quantum superposition, the Cartesian coordinate system and Zeno's Paradox, then you'll just love this piece of, ahem, literature.
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