The Natural: Justin Fields Exceeds Expectations

Matt Nagy spent three seasons trying to coax the inner great quarterback out of Mitchell Trubisky and never achieved the end result of building a passer who could consistently make big plays to carry an offense.

Trubisky failed the "200 level" of Matt Nagy's offense and then went to the bench for about half of his third year in the offense.

What Bears coaches have discovered in a few months of working with Justin Fields is they shouldn't be so hard on themselves about Trubisky's failure, if they even actually were.

As it turns out, a winning quarterback in the NFL is at least as much based on natural ability as experience and proper coaching.

Fields has shown the Bears this natural talent in several areas, whether it was in the film they watched or in the passing they saw from him at rookie camp, OTAs and minicamp.

Fields it is said, has the DNA of an NFL quarterback.

1. The deep pass

Trubisky never had the middle-to-deep passing accuracy to sting defenses and back them off of the shorter passes or the running game. He also always had difficulty with presnap and post-snap reads, all of which was noted at times by the coaching staff. Not reading defenses correctly makes it almost impossible to throw a deep pass. Interception percentages go up exponentially then.

Reading defenses isn't something the Bears will know about Fields until he's playing in preseason games. In college he gave indications both ways.

However, the actual process of throwing the deep pass is something Fields is well known for, and it's not necessarily something coaching will affect.

Coaching might affect the actual pass but there is always the mental aspect of the deep throw—when to make it and where to put it—that may not be so coachable. Natural aggressiveness and confidence enters into it and the Bears say they see all of this in Fields.

"I do think that is kind of in your DNA as a quarterback for sure," Bears quarterbacks coach John DeFilippo said. "You can coach that, but either the player feels comfortable enough in his skill set to push the ball down the field or he doesn't. You know what I'm saying?

"As a coach, you can design plays and try to get guys open at that third level as we call it, you know, and the guy won't pull the trigger. So the aggressiveness of a quarterback for sure is something that you want."

2. Ability to handle mistakes

Fields talked about his own ability to learn quickly from his mistakes, saying it's 99% certain he won't make the same mistake again after he makes one.

It goes beyond learning. Nagy saw in Fields an ability to properly handle disaster and this is more part of a player's mental makeup. The coaches can't help this much.

"So being able to see it now, he's just very—he's extremely, extremely calm, which I love," Nagy said. "So when something bad happens, and the next play it doesn't matter to him because he's so calm and he has confidence in himself. When something good happens, he reacts the same.

"And that part, that's a good trait to have, because you can never get too high, you can never get too low. That's why he's had the success he's had. You talk about the games that he played last year—the struggles he had against Northwestern, Indiana. But yet, he also comes back in a lot of those plays and steps up and makes plays or the next game has a great game. And so, it's in his DNA. He's wired the right way and that's what I love about him."

This is especially helpful in the red zone. Fields threw an interception in minicamp in the red zone and then said he rarely makes the same mistake twice.

In 2019, Trubisky threw four red zone interceptions to lead the NFL and then threw two more in 2020 while playing only 53% of the offensive snaps, showing he still made the same silly mistake at the same rate.

3. Handling external pressures

Trubisky would tell everyone the outside voices mean little and the team doesn't let this affect them.

Then he stopped using social media and also thought it was a good idea to shut off the televisions at Halas Hall. The pressure was coming from all directions for him off the field to an even greater extent than on the field.

Other than talking to Ohio State coach Ryan Day, the Bears staff wouldn't know how Fields handles this. Day did say it none of this ever bothers Fields. And Fields agrees.

"I don't think there's pressure at all on me because I expect myself to be a franchise quarterback," Fields said. "There is really no added pressure."

The wrong QB candidate finds all the pressures and is affected. The right QB candidate knows it's there and couldn't care less about it. He doesn't just say external pressure has no impact—he categorizes it as irrelevant and lives that way.

4. Ad Libber

Trubisky ran for 421 yards in his first year under Nagy, and it was coached into him that he had to use his feet more to buy time so he could make plays downfield with his arm. He cut back on scrambling and ran 20 fewer times (48) in 2019 as he insisted on looking downfield for the passes which never came.

He never developed this knack of buying time and then spotting the receivers who found ways to get open after their routes had been run and the play broke down.

Fields doesn't have to be taught this or practice it. He already does it. In fact, he may need to be encouraged to run.

"When somebody uses their legs and has the speed that he has that's a weapon and any defensive coordinator that sees that, and he's kind of on a different level because there is like the 4.6 number (for the 40-yard dash) and then there is the 4.4 number and when you are 4.4 (like Fields) that's on another level and you are going to outrun everybody really that's on that field," Nagy said. "That scares defensive coordinators."

In Fields, the Bears have someone who already has this skill figured out. They saw him moving around and finding receivers in college. He did it even during minicamp in seven-on-seven drills within the red zone.

Nagy suggested they may need to encourage him to do the opposite of what they wanted from Trubisky.

"He's made plays and now what we have to do is figure out how do we use that, and I think Justin will tell you that one of the things that he does is try to be a quarterback first and then use his legs when has to," Nagy said. "Sometimes for us, as coaches, you think a lot of guys like that want to run. But for us it’s the opposite.

"We are going to tell him, 'hey, when you get the chance to run, run, because you are special with your legs.' "

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