Numbers Justin Fields Needs to Improve
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Bears coach Matt Eberflus assessed what he has seen from Justin Fields and his receivers in the passing game at practices.
For now, take it with a grain of salt because they've only had a few practices against a live defense with no contact allowed. Earlier, they could only throw without defenders or, as they call it, against "air."
"You can just see good execution, that they're on the same page," Eberflus said. "You can just feel that rep after rep. It's the consistency of it. It's not just one time; it's pretty much every time."
He has standards, though.
"In 7-on-7, the ball shouldn't hit the ground and we're not there yet," Eberflus said. "Once we get that, where the guys are really proficient and reading the coverages, delivering the ball on time, we should not put the ball on the ground in 7-on-7."
When the season begins, the standards are obviously different for Fields. The Bears want to see improvement.
What he needs to do is only known to them but here's where Fields stood last year and potential statisical standards to meet.
300-Yard Games
Last year there were 93 300-yard passing games in the league. Backups Jarrett Stidham, Carson Wentz, Zach Wilson, Gardner Minshew, Davis Mills, Bailey Zappe, Jameis Winston, Teddy Bridgewater and Mike White had 300-yard games but Fields did not have one.
The Bears are the only team never to have a 4,000-yard passing season but the don't necessarily need this to become a playoff team. It might be good to know their quarterback can at least attain 300 yards passing in a game if necessary, though. With DJ Moore and an improved receiver group, it's possible.
Pass Attempts
Fields last year threw 318 times in 15 games, or 21.2 times a game. Obviously 21.2 passes a game is not getting a team anything unless they are averaging 10 yards per rushing attempt by turning the clock back to the leather helmet era. The Bears had the fewest pass attempts in the NFL last year.
If Fields just comes halfway, and makes it into the top half of the league in passes thrown, what could it mean?
Jalen Hurts last year threw it 460 times. He was the dividing point to the top half of the league, finishing 16th in attempts. And the Eagles were in the Super Bowl. Jimmy Garoppolo averaged 28 attempts a game for a team in the NFC championship game, although he only played in 11 games. If Fields just increases his attempts by seven to hit that number then it's not unreasonable to expect the Bears offense to improve greatly.
Completion Percentage
Fields was not accurate enough. He finished with 60.4% completions, a point better than his rookie year but 31st among starting QBs.
Completion percentage and team success tend to go hand in hand. Of the top 15 quarterbacks in completion percentage, 11 made the playoffs last year. The minimum a QB did last year and still lead his team into the playofs was Tua Tagovailoa's 64.8%. He was 19th in the league. There's a target for Fields. Lamar Jackson could have done it and was completing just 62.3% but he was knocked out for the season after 12 games and eight wins.
To simply reach the top half of the league Fields needed to be at 65.2%.
Interception Percentage
This is an area where Fields needs drastic improvement.
His 3.5% was far better than his 5.xx% as a rookie but still 32nd in the league. Getting to where Hurts was last year would probably be impossible at 1.3%. Getting halfway up the chart to 16th in the league would have been 2.2% last year (Aaron Rodgers). Dak Prescott managed to get the Cowboys into the playoffs with an even worse interception percentage than Fields had (3.8%) but this is very uncommon. No one else with worse than a 2.5% interception percentage made it. Josh Allen was at 2.5% and 23rd in the league. So there's a goal.
Yards Per Attempt
It's a number that's always been a signal of success for QBs but possibly not as important as in past years because of the number of teams who throw a lot and throw short, de-emphasizing the run. Last year of the top 10 QBs in yards per attempt, seven made the playoffs. Tagovailoa led the league with his ridiculous 8.9 per attempt and two receivers who could turn any completion into an instant six points. The other two to make 8.0 or better were Hurts and Patrick Mahomes.
Fields was at 7.1 and that wasn't bad, putting him 17th in the league or in the middle of the pack. He was even with Trevor Lawrence, better than Justin Herbert (6.8), Tom Brady (6.5), Daniel Jones (6.8), Mills (6.5) and definitely Kyler Murray (6.1).
So Fields doesn't have far to go to be a QB of playoff level here, possibly only a few years per attempt better. To get to the Super Bowl level, it will take getting closer to 8.0.
Touchdown Percentage
If Fields holds his percentage and increases his attempts, he's fine right where he is. He can even backslide. His 17 touchdown passes per his 318 attempts was 5.3% and sixth in the league. His 17 TD passes by themselves ranked 16th in the league, or top half.
So it's more a case of cutting down his mistakes than it is making the TD pass for him.
Fumbles
And this is one mistake he needs to eliminate. This is an area not entirely Fields' fault because he's getting hit for strip sacks due to a faulty line at times. But he needs maybe his most drastic improvement here because he led the NFL in fumbles with 16. He also led in recovering fumbles with eight but that's still too many fumbles.
Some of it is his fault for holding the ball too long or for being careless with the ball.
It's not an easy statistic to improve individually because they don't go live in practice, but Fields just needs to be more aware of his surroundings.
Third-Down Passing
It won't hurt Fields to get better here but considering his overall struggles with accuracy, his 88.0 passer rating on third downs was not bad at all. He was 14th in the league. And only eight QBs were better than his 62% completions on third downs, a number probably aided by the fact defenses had to worry about his running for 65 first downs, second only to Hurts (67) among QBs.
Fields can improve a few spots here, sure, but third-down passing is not his problem.
Fourth-Quarter Passing
Passing at crunch time is his problem. It helps explain why the Bears lost seven times by a touchdown and conversion or less.
Fields was 40th in the NFL in fourth-quarter passer rating at 61.3. To get to the middle of the league where Trevor Lawrence was, he needs to hit 86.7 for a fourth-quarter passer rating.
Fields threw the second-most interceptions in fourth quarters with six. His yards per attempt then was sixth from the worst. His completion percentage in fourth quarters was 31st in the league.
He wasn't a money QB.
To become elite, he needs to be. Hurts was at 104.7 for a fourth-quarter passer rating last year.
There are plenty of numbers Fields can improve but if he gets better in this area, it will naturally improve the most important statistic of all and that's his total wins. Five wins in 25 starts is embarrassing, though not entirely his fault.
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