Walking All Over the Trade Fields Theory

Like pesky insects in summer drawn to the light on your deck, the swarm flocking to the concept of the Bears trading Justin Fields continues to grow.

Todd McShay of ESPN joined the group which already includes Colin Cowherd, Jason La Canfora and Warren Sapp. It just shows McShay should stick to the evaluation side of college football talent rather than what actually happens when they take larger pay checks.

The size of this swarm worries Bears fans. On social media, they seem closer to a catatonic state. With each comment about trading Fields, it becomes increasingly difficult to assuage their fears.

The truth is these wild, incorrect comments increase internet interest far more than it would by echoing GM Ryan Poles saying Fields is his quarterback in 2023, which he did.

Each unsubstantiated false comment makes the truth a less effective salve for Bears fans' open wounds.

But let's address this once and for all

1. Reality Not Analytics

Fields haters see a 5-20 record as starting quarterback and blame him.

These are people who likely never actually watched the full games as they occurred during a 3-14 season, because if they did it would be impossible for them to arrive at the conclusion the team is better off trading Fields.

The new offense needed six games to get going, and coordinator Luke Getsy needed time to adjust his system to Fields. When he did, it worked, and Fields looked like a real run/pass threat who gave defenses big trouble.

A stretch of five games when the Bears averaged 29.6 points followed, during which Fields improved greatly for a passer rating of 99.9 with nine touchdown passes and just three interceptions. But the Bears only won once.

It had nothing to do with Fields and everything to do with a defense that was last in sacks, next to last in stopping the run and gradually declined as pass defenders while one defensive back after another succumbed to injured reserve.

They lost 10 straight games and gave up 33.1 points a game during those games. It's pretty simple: NFL teams don't win giving up 33.1 points a game, especially those in a rebuilding years who lack much offensive talent to complement the quarterback.

The Bears finished last in scoring defense for the first time in their history. It wasn't the result of two or three bad defensive efforts when teams got 50 points. It was steady, constant, bad defense. They gave up less than 28 only twice in that stretch when they allowed 33.3 a game.

Fields somehow kept them in games while their defense went about giving them away, following the Roquan Smith and Robert Quinn trades.

Fields had no margin for error thanks to his defense. The very second those two defensive players left, it became much more difficult for Fields to keep the Bears in games.

He somehow did it over four weeks.

Then he was out of the lineup with a shoulder injury and what happened? The offense put up only 10 points without him in a 31-10 blowout loss to the Jets, who finished 7-10. The Bears hadn't really looked incapable of competing all year until the point when Fields came out of the lineup.

None of this requires analytics or contrived Pro Football Focus grades to see. It's simply what happened in the season if you paid attention.

2. No Help

After Fields' shoulder injury, the Bears no longer had Darnell Mooney. During that stretch of losses afterward, they were without Khalil Herbert and Chase Claypool part of the time. And Fields was playing hurt. He still put up a passer rating above 95 over the first three games after his shoulder injury, prior to one poor effort when he wasn't protected well against Detroit.

Then he was done for the year with what was reported as a hip injury.

Even the Fields detractors have to look at the receiver corps of Equanimeous St. Brown, Dante Pettis, Nimba Webster and N'Keal Harry and arrive at the conclusion Fields wasn't going to do much with those targets. This was the grouping he had when Mooney was done and Claypool went out. Even with Claypool playing, the former Steeler hadn't yet fully been involved in the offense and the injury made it less likely he would be.

The other area where Fields had little help was the offensive line. The "trade Fields" contingent points to the Bears offensive line as "greatly improved," because of a Pro Football Focus grade rating them in among the NFL's top 14 lines. This is fiction.

It's a contrived number and judgment. Anyone who watched their blocking over the course of the year could tell you they struggled. They couldn't block the run on short-yardage downs or goal-line situations. By ranking first in rushing, the Bears line gets too much credit for run blocking when Fields' rushing plays and scrambles, accounted for much of their total. Those are more the result of extra blockers or breakdowns in pass blocking and not successes.

Fields encountered pressure when passing at the fifth-highest rate in the league, according to Sportradar.

Fields accounted for 31 of their rushing first downs with scrambles and he had to scramble the most of any NFL QB (70 times).

Sure Fields, held it longer than almost all other quarterbacks, but it was the exact same amount of time Jalen Hurts did in his second year, according to NextGen Stats (3.12 seconds). There was no great outcry to trade Hurts and those who did say it were wrong.

The Bears running attack had the second-highest number of runs that went 10 yards or more, but Fields individually was fourth in the league at runs of 10 yards or more. When your quarterback is doing this it isn't a feather in the line's cap. It's a sign of weakness. On designed quarterback runs, the offensive line has help with an extra blocker assisting them. On scrambles, the runs result from the line's failure and the yardage is all on Fields and his receivers blocking downfield.

If you're comparing Fields to other developing passers he had worse blocking than those players did in their second years but still managed to produce yards and points. He definitely had worse blocking than Hurts did in Year 2.

The bottom line about Fields' offensive line is this: If they were so good, then why are there going to be two or three players lining up at starting spots in 2023 who weren't starters there last year?

3. The Comparison

Everyone loves comparing Fields with Hurts and the detractors say he's no Hurts.

He is no Hurts. He improved more than Hurts did in his second year and did it with far worse talent helping him.

Hurts' first season consisted of 148 throws and he had a 77.56 passer rating. He raised his passer rating by only 7.17 points from then through the end of Year 2. Fields' first 148 NFL throws resulted in a 69.26 passer rating but from then through the end of his second year he had raised his passer rating by 10.43 points, 3.26 more points than Hurts.

Fields' TD pass total from his 148th throw through the end of his second year came increased by 21. Hurts' only increased for that same stretch by 16.

With that type of improvement and a third year of facing NFL defenses when he should have a better defense behind him and possibly better blocking and receivers, the anti-Fields crowd has determined it's time to trade him?

JUSTIN FIELDS' SECOND YEAR COMPARED TO JALEN HURTS YEAR 2

4. The Alternative

If you've determined you're trading the quarterback, then there must be an alternative. Bryce Young is the consensus top QB in this draft.

He's 5-foot-11 or thereabouts. He might be 5-10 at the combine. He might be 6-foot if he doesn't get his hair cut and wears socks when measured. No one knows yet but he's very short for an NFL quarterback.

There were only two NFL QB starters shorter than 6-foot last year and they were Kyler Murray and Russell Wilson. Murray runs about a 4.38 to 4.4 time in the 40 and Wilson is an aging quarterback who could scramble better than most every other quarterback when he was younger.

The average height for an NFL starter last year was 6-foot-2 3/4 inches. Fields is 6-3. There were only 10 starting QBs listed as shorter than 6-3 last year in the league.

So the detractors would have the Bears draft a starter whose speed hasn't been measured, and ran for 162 yards in three college seasons, one who is only 5-10 or 5-11. And they would dump a 6-3 QB who ran for more yardage than all but one NFL QB ever. Fields' yards per run were higher than any NFL running back or quarterback ever averaged for 160 rushing attemps or more.

Passing is what's important though, but how is the 5-10 QB going to see over those 6-5 defensive linemen coming at him? By running and moving, right? And that's not Young's game, as has been established with his 162 yards rushing in college. Fields wasn't even a runner in college and had over 1,100 yards.

There have been short quarterbacks, like 5-11 Drew Brees. He was drafted a generation ago. The game has moved on since then and he also had dealt in college with great pass rush pressure every week because Purdue was not exactly an offensive lineman's hangout.

Alabama gives Young enough time to go out and have lunch in between taking the snap and throwing. They'll be eating Young's lunch in the NFL.

I will never understand looking at Bryce Young and thinking “that’s it, that’s the guy who’s gonna turn around a team that allowed a sack on 15.3% of drop backs with some Free Agents and a draft class without a top 60 pick”.
— Robert Schmitz (@robertkschmitz) February 18, 2023

5. The Reset

Trading Fields and drafting Young is a great reset for the Bears coaching staff and really GM Ryan Poles, it is argued by the uninformed.

This sets the clock back another year for Poles and Matt Eberflus, gives them more time to build.

Somehow this is being twisted into a positive argument.

What this really does is set back the rebuild one more year and force a repeat for Chicagoans of the worst year of football since LBJ. They draft Young and use a rookie instead of Fields, then it truly is a second first year of the rebuild.

Think not? Then check the rookie stats of almost every single NFL quarterback ever in the entirety of history.

Beyond that, here's how a reset work in Chicago:

Mitchell Trubisky is drafted, so this gives John Fox a reset because he only got to have that QB for 12 games. And Fox is fired.

Justin Fields is drafted, so this should give Matt Nagy a reset because he has been able to work with Fields for only 10 starts. And Nagy is fired.

There is no resetting in Chicago with this ownership.

Fields is the starter as Poles said, and he has another year to prove it.

Fields Is Back

If he regresses or doesn't improve at all, they'll have to deal with it next year.

There is an argument out there that Fields will fail again and they're wasting the chance now to have the first pick in the draft to actually get a quarterback.

Well, the choices aren't worth the first pick in a draft now. They're not as good as Fields.

Besides, there aren't many people who follow the Bears who would want to see another season where they do qualify for the first pick in the draft in 2024.

Beyond that, if Fields is as bad as Cowherd, La Canfora, McShay, Sapp and other trade advocates have you believe, then if he is starter again why wouldn't they qualify for the first pick or one very close to it in the draft next year?

COLIN COWHERD LIKES CARSON WENTZ OVER AARON RODGERS

COLIN COWHERD DIDN'T LIKE JALEN HURTS EITHER

Twitter: BearDigest@BearsOnMaven

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