What Justin Fields' Numbers Could Mean

Bears fans have been down this road before, although they won't want to admit it.

Justin Fields had a big passing game Thursday in the 40-20 win over Washington. In fact, he has had consecutive big games as a passer now, with eight touchdown passes in two weeks, four in each game.

Fields' touchdown percentage of 7.2 per pass attempt and his 11 total touchdowns currently lead the NFL, although the total TDs isn't likely to hold up its lead after every other team has Week 5 on Sunday and Monday.

Nevertheless, it's impressive considering where he was after three weeks. After three games people like analysts like Michael Lombardi and Mike Martz were calling Fields a failed QB. Martz said Tyson Bagent should be playing.

A lot of critics jumped the gun on Fields' failures and didn't give him a chance. It was easy to do when the Bears were in the middle of a losing sttreak.

However, if they had actually looked closely, he's actually repeating what he did last year. He had a slow start in the Luke Getsy system but then went wild over a 10-game stretch as both a passer and runner.

It appears he's doing the same thing, but yet to be determined is whether this is going to become the norm or he merely caught two struggling pass defenses and took advantage.

Bears fans on social media and call-in shows went wild on Friday over Fields' big night and the big question was when was the last time a Bears quarterback could say he had eight TD passes in two weeks?

Mitchell Trubisky is the answer, of course. He had six against Tampa Bay in 2018 during a win and followed with three more the next week in an overtime loss at Miami. So he had nine in two games.

It definitely didn't mean Trubisky had arrived.

Right now Fields has a career-high passer rating of 95.4. That's good, but not good enough.

He has a yards per attempt of 7.5 but if he wants to get to where the really good QBs are he needs it to climb even higher to just below or over 8.0.

His completion percentage definitely needs to get better, since it's still only 61.8% and even in Thursday's win he completed barely 50% at 15 of 29.

Again, using Trubisky's 2018 season, he had the same number of TD passes Fields has after the same number of games with 11. He had an ever better passer rating of 105.6 and a better yards/attempt of 7.8. He was more accurate at 70.2% completions. He had thrown only four interceptions and Fields has thrown five.

And Trubisky is a backup in Pittsburgh after being a backup in Buffalo.

So jumping to any conclusions about Fields' career, or saying the Bears no longer need to think about Cleb Williams in the draft or any other quarterback, just is too premature.

However, there are a few reasons floating around to think Fields has made a jump.

Moore Not Less

One reasons to think Fields really has made the next step is DJ Moore. He finally really does have a main target to make defenses worry.

Passing connections are not made overnight. They require confidence from the quarterback in the receiver to make that anticipatory throw. They needed the first three weeks to build something. Preseason offered no real preparation time for starters because they didn't play much but even then the game is different in exhibitions without game-planning going on.

In the last two weeks, Moore has 361 receiving yards on 16 catches, with four TDs.

No Bears receiver ever had back-to-back yardage games like this—not Allen Robinson, Alshon Jeffery, Brandon Marshall, Marty Booker, Marcus Robinson, Curtis Conway, Jeff Graham, Muhsin Muhammad, Willie Gault, Johnny Morris or even Da Coach, Mike Ditka, when he was still Da Tight End.

NFL.com reports the best in the Super Bowl era had been Alshon Jeffery with 333 yards in Weeks 13 and 14. According to Profootballreference.com, before that, the great Harlon Hill put together conecutive games with 340 yards on 16 catches for Weeks 4 and 5 against the Colts and 49ers in 1956, the season the Bears made the NFL championship game only to be routed by the Giants.

Fields has a real target to lean on, and now when teams try to adjust other receivers might step up. Already, Cole Kmet has. He's on track for easily his biggest season.

The Running Game

It hadn't been there in the first three games to the extent the Bears needed but with 349 yards the last two games it is looking more like last year's attack. With Teven Jenkins returning to health and Braxton Jones due back in a few weeks, they'll finally get the intended offensive on the field and working together.

With a running game to balance out the offense, Fields will only benefit more with play-action and more wide-open targets.

Analytics

According to NFL NextGen Stats, Fields is now tied for 13th in average air yards on completions, intended air yards and in their overall aggressiveness formula. If a passer is being aggressive and gaining yards with a higher passer rating, it can only mean good things. When they back down and start taking only the short throws, and don't even do this well, then there are problems.

Fields still needs to get the ball out faster as his time to throw on NextGen is still over three seconds and among the league's slowest (3.06 seconds), but it's still better than last season when he was at 3.12.

Eye Test

Bears coach Matt Eberflus cited a less mathematical reason—the eye test.

"I just think the comfort level, he said. "And I think you see him having more poise, you know, when he's in the pocket and when we're moving him out of the pocket. And I think he's getting a chemistry with the group.

"You know, overall, you can see great chemistry with DJ, you know, and Cole and Mooney and the rest of the guys that are catching for us. And you can see that in practice. And he feels more comfortable making those throws now. And it's going to continue to grow."

Bears fans shouldn't ignore Caleb Williams' progress now, but perhaps they don't need to check on it every week

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