Chicago Bears rookie quarterback Justin Fields got the first start of his NFL career last week against the Cleveland Browns, and it was an abject disaster. Let's take a look at what happened, and why the Bears are profiling to ruin another first round quarterback in their development process if they aren't careful.
The Bears moved up to the 11th pick in the 2021 NFL Draft to select Justin Fields, the elite mobile quarterback out of Ohio State. Fields had a prolific college career yet slipped in the draft due to the depth of the position group he was a part of. Evaluators began to nitpick all of the prospects, and Fields has some "lowlights" from OSU (namely the blowout loss to Alabama in the 2019 BCS Championship) that obviously gave teams with the highest picks a reason for pause.
On draft day, Trevor Lawrence, Zach Wilson, and Trey Lance were all selected in the top 10, leaving the Bears frothing at the mouth to move up 9 spots with the Giants and select Fields. Chicago had already signed veteran Andy Dalton, with plans on riding the veteran through the season and developing Fields in the process.
That "process" is what every team tries in theory when selecting a mid-round QB (ala Alex Smith/Pat Mahomes, Brett Favre/Aaron Rodgers) but that process generally only works when the team developing the rookie already has a solid roster and a proven starter at the position. As early as the first preseason game, it became apparent (regardless of what Nagy was saying) that Dalton would only retain the starting job as long as he was healthy, and even then, only if he was winning.
Already, the Bears were on track to betray the most important part of the whole QB development philosophy, and the season hadn't even started.
Matt Nagy was hired as the Bears head coach in 2018 after displaying his offensive play calling skills as the Kansas City offensive coordinator under Andy Reid. It was Nagy's first head coaching job, and he inherited 2017 second overall pick Mitchell Trubisky as his quarterback. That first year, after a blockbuster trade involving Khalil Mack, the Bears won the NFC North for the first time since 2010, earning Coach of the Year honors for Nagy along the way.
After that, the franchise devolved into mediocrity between 2019 and 2020, not able to develop enough consistency on either side of the ball to become a true contender. Nagy did squeak into the playoffs in 2020 with an 8-8 record, due to the expanded playoff format and a tiebreaker with the Arizona Cardinals, but the Bears were not competitive and subsequently got destroyed in the Wild Card round by the Saints.
After the season the Bears shipped Trubisky to Buffalo for a bag of used footballs, and prepared to take advantage of the prospect-rich 2021 QB class despite not having a high selection. Nagy said after the draft that Fields was "their guy" all along and that is probably true, considering Lawrence and Wilson weren't options. When other QB-needy teams passed on Fields and he fell to 11, Nagy pulled the trigger and moved up to draft his QB of the future.
Over the first two weeks of the 2021 season we saw the Bears get absolutely pummeled as expected by the LA Rams, but then bounce back against the Bengals, forcing turnovers and edging out Cincy for the win by 3.
Offensively, the Bears were not consistent in either game, although against the Rams they surprisingly were able to move the ball on the ground and even employed Fields for a rushing touchdown. Against the Bengals, the stick in the spokes of the "develop Fields" strategy was fully inserted when Andy Dalton suffered a knee injury and exited the game in the third quarter. Fields took the reins, and despite running the ball on almost half his snaps and overall being ineffective, he did lead the Bears to a victory.
After it became apparent Dalton would not suit up against the Browns in Week 3, Fields was named the starter over veteran Nick Foles. Foles was never in the conversation to actually start the game, but in the aftermath we are left to wonder if Nagy should have considered it.
Week 3 against the Browns started with Fields seeing pressure from the edge right off the bat. The Cleveland defense is not a great look for a rookie quarterback in his first start, but the Browns were just coming off a game where they almost lost to the Houston Texans, so there were opportunities to be had.
Unfortunately for Fields, one of the biggest Chicago weaknesses is their offensive line, and one of Cleveland's biggest strengths is their pass rush. Once they stuffed the Chicago early rushing attempts, Nagy tried to let Fields show why he was a first round pick, dropping back and assessing the defense, but that resulted in a sack. Soon after, when Fields scrambled away from pressure and realized his receivers were blanketed, he turned his legs upfield to gain a few yards but before he could take a step…sacked.
It went like that all game, with Fields struggling to complete 6-of-20 pass attempts for merely 68 yards, adding 3 rushes for 12 yards. He was sacked a staggering 9 times, and Chicago as a whole managed only 47 offensive yards. Their biggest gain of the day didn't even appear on the stat sheet, when a Fields interception was ruled defensive pass interference, negating the turnover and giving the Bears those positive yards. Ultimately Fields lost his first NFL start 26-6, in what will go down as one of the ugliest debuts by a first round QB in recent memory.
So what happened? No one expected Fields to go out and break records last weekend, but 9 sacks and 47 total yards of offense was clearly a shock from a team that made the playoffs last season. In a sentence, the Bears were simply not prepared from a coaching standpoint. Of course the plan was to run the ball and protect the rookie, but when that was ineffective we saw a turning point.
Nagy kept attempting to win the game, rather than realize the situation and call plays that insulated Fields from his own weaknesses. Nagy knew Fields wasn't ready to face a team like Browns, but rather than design a game plan around the rookie's skills that already translated to the NFL level, he called the same plays he would have for Dalton and expected Fields to "Lamar Jackson" his way out of it. If the plan was to see if Fields was Lamar Jackson, well, Nagy got his answer there. No.
I'm not knocking Nagy for hoping Fields could go out and execute a normal NFL script against a solid playoff defense, because you hope any first round pick can at least survive out there. Nagy's issue was that he refused to adapt once the train started going off the tracks. The pass protection was abhorrent, with the Bears' best lineman being Jason Peters (he just turned 60 years old, I think) and it wasn't showing signs of a miracle turnaround. Fields knew this, and after taking a few hard hits, he felt it too. That caused him to essentially abandon his reads and enter survival mode. If no one was open anyways, why even look, and attempting to escape the pocket eventually resulted in 9 sacks and 15 total QB hits.
Fields is not blameless in this, as the best pass-rush defender is always the quarterback himself. There is a reason why the Patriots always had a pro-bowl offensive line, and now suddenly the Bucs have a Pro Bowl line. It's Tom Brady.
Fields, like most rookies, was far too slow on his progressions, meaning by the time he realized he should have thrown the ball...it was too late. For better or worse, making a quick decision and committing to it is the only way to stay afloat against that level of pressure.
So what was the alternative? I don't think there was a magic game plan that would have made Fields shine, or even given the Bears a chance considering the rookie's experience level. Nagy should have focused the play calling on getting the ball out of Fields' hand as quickly as possible, and death by the run. If the line can't pass protect, direct Fields and Montgomery to get the hell out of there immediately, shovel the ball to the running back, get a yard and call it a play. Might as well get a few yards and punt rather than take a few sacks and punt.
I'm not sure what Nagy expected in the second half, other than his offense getting more talented suddenly, because his methods (and the results) stayed the same. Hindsight is always 20/20 but the main criticism I have for Nagy is the complete dismissal of utilizing Nick Foles. Foles is capable of executing the same game plan that Andy Dalton is, and Nagy should have seen that his offense simply isn't built for a mobile quarterback at this juncture. Nagy also had admitted Fields was not ready to be a starter yet, he even said as much multiple times when pressured by media in the Dalton/Fields debate.
On top of that, the idea of inserting Fields into each game in limited situations to get him real-time experience was actually working through the first two weeks. In essence, if Nagy truly believed in the process of developing Fields, he should have entertained the idea of starting Foles even if the plan was to have Fields play most of the game. It continues the growth of the young QB without directly feeding him to the wolves, and it would have given Nagy an option to pull the rookie without consequence when things got predictably rough.
Instead, Nagy allowed Fields to take such a physical and mental beatdown that he needed X-rays on his throwing hand afterwards and showed signs of PTSD during the postgame press conference. That's some New York Jets-level commitment to ruining a prospect before he even has a chance.
Where do the Bears go from here? Once a rookie QB is handed the starting job, regardless of the reason, it's extremely rare for the veteran to get the role returned to him.
Because of the results of week 3, however, the fact that Fields was essentially an injury substitute for Dalton becomes the focal point of the conversation, rather than how ugly the rookie looked. If Fields had lit it up, there is no question he would be starting this week. Fortunately for Nagy, Andy Dalton is on track to be healthy (enough) to suit up against the Detroit Lions Sunday, and the narrative has remained "see, Fields isn't ready" rather than "whoops, Fields isn't very good".
Judging Fields on his performance against the Browns isn't 100% fair, although it doesn't bode well for him that a plethora of other young QBs have been forced into starting situations recently and even if they didn't win the games, they looked pretty solid. It's going to take a minute for Fields to develop his timing in the NFL, and at a certain point that will have to be on the field. The standout young QBs like Kyler Murray and Josh Allen didn't have appreciably better offenses than Fields does when they entered the league, but they learned how to use their playing style to elevate the players around them. If Chicago wants to have their first real franchise quarterback in team history, Fields will have to display those talents as well.
The responsibility of allowing Fields the necessary time to display those skills falls on Matt Nagy, and he failed pretty massively in that respect last week. Either Nagy felt that Fields was more ready than he was saying, or he truly felt trial by fire was the best thing for his young prospect. We have seen time and time again that when a rookie isn't ready to face an NFL defense, his career can be ruined in a few short games if you let him get mentally broken. Fields is not Lamar Jackson or Justin Herbert and can't just hit the ground running as evidenced by his performance last week.
That doesn't mean he is a bust yet though, and the Bears selected him knowing it would take some time to unlock the full set of skills Fields has. I fully expect Andy Dalton to miss more time this year, as he's an aging QB without an offensive line. When/if that happens, hopefully Nagy has learned from the Browns game and will opt to continue the development of Fields as planned...but behind Nick Foles.
The Bears do not have a friendly schedule this season, so no game jumps out as an easy day to toss Fields out there and see what happens, but the process of inserting him into certain situations, or even giving him a half in a blowout loss against the Packers or something is much more development-friendly than starting him against Myles Garrett.
Stick to the game plan, Matt Nagy. Maybe Fields isn't the guy, but you will never know if you abandon the process that worked for you in Kansas City. If the worst thing that happens is starting Nick Foles and losing anyways, it shouldn't even be a conversation what to do if Dalton suffers another injury. Stick to the game plan, Coach.
ความคิดเห็น