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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.
Over the first two weeks of the 2021 season we saw the Bears get absolutely pummeled 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 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.
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, eventually resulting 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.
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.
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