adam

The next two games will be telling. Texans and Giants, both improved teams, but still the lower half of the league. If Fields is not getting 20+ passing attempts in both games, that is a red flag. The running game may have been working, but it also chewed a ton of time off the clock. So it is a double edged sword. They were basically protecting against the deep shot with 2 deep safeties and making the Bears beat them underneath or with the run. The Bears still elected to run instead of the quick passing game. My concern is at some point the numbers are the numbers. His 25% may be a small sample size but for Fields career, he is at 17.8%, which would be the worst all time for any QB. He needs to start going 20+ attempts without a sack or INT. The rate is just too high for a negative play. David Carr, who everyone has as the poster boy for getting sacked out of the league only had a 10.5% Sack+Int to Attempt ratio for his career. A guy like Dwayne Haskins was at 14%. Fields has to show significant improvement in the next two weeks.

Yep, that does make sense, because he looked like me out there, old and slow.

One interesting (bad) stat: 25% of Fields passing attempts result in an INT or Sack. That is 1 in every 4 pass attempts is a sack or INT. Joe Burrow is 2nd with 19.1%, Winston is 17.5%, Stafford is 16.8, and Daniel Jones is 16.3%. No other QBs are over 15%. On the flip side, Mahomes is 1.3%, Herbert is 3.6%, and Lawrence is 4.1%.

Yeah bad call, it was so obvious, just like the Nagy 3rd and short play with CPat. Everyone in the stadium knew what was coming. I would've went with Monty there on Jenkins side.

Patrick with cast off snapping the ball at practice. It is an early Christmas. I don't understand how Mustipher can be that big but so weak, 6'2" 330 is huge. Mustipher was arguably the weakest link on a bad line last year. If Patrick can come in and solidify the C position while Jenkins gets full reps at RG. The line is looking pretty solid. Bears by 20.

Still kinda crazy that Pace got to pick 2 QBs in the top 12 within 4 yrs of each other BEFORE he lost his job. Once Mahomes and Watson (massages aside) starting balling (no pun intended for Watson), and Trubisky looked like a deer in the headlights, he should've been fired.

I never thought about the RPOs, I will have to go back and see how many were called and what the run/pass ratio was.

me too, just let it rip

Yeah, 3-1 would be a huge success for the first quarter of the season.

Yeah, definitely no contain and no gap integrity for sure. I think the DE's went up the field so fast, they took themselves out of the play.

After watching this, I feel much better. QB1 is maturing before our eyes. Compare this to a Trubisky presser from 2019, it is night and day difference:

For how bad they played, they were an inch away from making it a one score game late in the 4th quarter. It just seems like if they can ever play a normal game, they are going to beat a lot of teams if they can hang with the Packers with that type of performance.

The DTs can only do so much when it is 4 v 2. On a lot of those outside zone runs, GB had 5-6 blockers to 3-4 defenders. We need all the LBs and a Safety in the box there to make it even numbers.

From what I have read, they were taking Mooney and Kmet out, which forced Fields into his 2nd or 3rd reads. They didn't double them, just had the Safety shading towards them. On the long ball, it just looked like Mooney gave up on it when he knew it was well over his head. Also, Fields needed to throw it to his side, the Safety had a better angle over the top. Fields needed to lead Mooney away from the Safety. I am not too concerned, he was basically the WR1 last year for most of the year. I just think Getsy is trying too many long developing plays instead of quick slants and other quick hitters. To me it is the entire offense still getting used to the new system with live ammo. It feels like Getsy has also been fairly conservative with Fields to this point. At some point you have to just let him play football. From the presser, Fields stated that he runs the plays that he is given, which seems to be he doesn't have much flexibility to audible at the line. That needs to change. If he doesn't have at least 5-6 catches and 8-9 targets against Houston, then I will be concerned.

Yep, exactly, that is why I mentioned them. There is still hope, but every week there is not visible improvement, the odds will shrink considerably.

One of the biggest indicators of success is looking at DVOA; it is way more accurate than QB Rating, QBR, PFF, etc. Right now Fields is -75.4%, 33rd in the league, dead last by a country mile. The only glimmer of hope is guys like Burrow and Prescott are near Fields at the bottom after two weeks. https://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/nfl/qb/2022 Last year, Fields was 32nd at -28.4%, behind Dalton and Brissett and ahead of only Darnold and Wilson. So he is actually trending down. His DVOA numbers look like Haskins (who had back to back -40% seasons), Kizer, Rosens, and Osweiler over the last 5-6 years. That is the group he is in right now and just trended to the worst of the group. -75.4% would be the worst QB DVOA for a full season by 30+%, which is historically bad. The bottom line is Fields needs to improve and do so quickly. Anymore sub 200 yard passing games and it is highly likely that he is who he is right now. Just for fun: Looking at RBs, the worst RB with a -66.9% is Montgomery, the next closest is Drake at -43.0%. Again, it is early and guys like Henry and Ekeler are also in the negative. If Monty's number stayed around there, it would be the worst RB DVOA ever for a full season. Joshua Kelley -36.4% in 2020 was the lowest I could find in the last 10 years and Chris Perry (CIN) -41.8%. For WRs, Mooney is not eligible for the leaderboard, but his DVOA is -96.2%, 4th worst in the NFL. Griffin is the only TE to register a catch and he is currently last for TEs with 3 or less receptions. So we have basically the worst QB, RB, WR, TE in the NFL according to DVOA. The O-Line is 23rd, the D-Line is 20th. As a team, the Bears are 30th in DVOA, 30th on Offense, and 27th on Defense, Special Teams is 24th. Last year the Bears finished 24th.

The Bears are favored!!!!!, by 2.5, which means on an neutral field, HOU would be -0.5 lol. Interestingly enough, this team is like the Spiderman meme with the Bears. Both have the same amount of pts scored, are near the bottom in the league in yards (Bears 32, Texans 28), have almost the same amount of pts against, same amount of sacks (5), and both teams cannot stop the run (Bears 32, Texans 30). The biggest differences are the Bears have a much better rushing game (8 v 27), which plays into the Texans' weakness, and the Texans give up a ton more passing yds (270 vs 183), good for a Fields get right game. Just based on yardage, the Texans do nothing well, on offense they are 22nd in passing, 27th in rushing, on defense the are 26th in passing and 30th in rushing. This is a perfect game to get things going for the Bears. At home, non-prime time versus a winless team. Davis Mills at QB, their best WR is Brandon Cooks and their RBs are Pierce and Burkhead. Cooks would be the only player I would roster on the Bears for skill position players. Mills is basically a game manager and they try to play low scoring games. I feel like this is a good breakout game for just about everybody. Fields, Mooney, and Kmet should all see much more action. I feel like the defense will get a few more sacks and maybe even an INT or FF. I am going with Bears 27-13, Bears with 3 TDs, 2 FGs, Texans with 1 TD, 2 FGs, 20-13 late, Bears score a TD to put it away.

The trends are in regards to his raw numbers. At some point, he is who he is. We are not there yet with Fields, but every game, we get one game closer to that. By the end of this year we will definitely be there. The issue I am noticing with Fields is not his processing, it is his time to execution. You can see him go thru his reads quickly, players open or about to be, but he hesitates. The best example is when he threw the ball when he was past the LOS. EQ was open before he crossed the LOS. He needs to just react quicker. That is a different problem than Trubisky, who couldn't read a defense unless it was like a Dr. Seuss book. That is Step 1. Fields is on Step 3. He has to pull the trigger faster after reading the play. That is at least fixable and maybe he gets there with more reps. Guys like Allen and Jackson took a couple of seasons to get there. Fields hasn't even played a full season of games yet. Just a general question, where are the quick slants or easy tosses to TEs in the flat? DBs playing 10 yds off, take the easy 7 yards. TE chips and rolls to the flat, hit em. It just felt like most of the plays were very slow to develop and easy to defend. Getsy has to be better.

I agree.

Definitely for both purposes. So far and weekly.

My deflated game balls: 1. Smith - $20M Will LB? Holy hell he was bad. He looked slow and fat, and seemed to be missing his gap assignment. 2. Gordon - Rookie CB got smoked all game. I thought this system made them not have to think and just play fast? He was behind every receiver he covered and let up a reception every time it was thrown his way except his one PBU. 3. Fields+All Receivers+OC - That was one of the worst passing games I have seen. Terrible play calls, rarely open, Fields not hitting them when open. 4. Mustipher - Got hip tossed on one play, quick snap resulted in fumble. We really need Patrick at Center. 5. KRs - STOP taking it out if you can't make it past the 25! Field position is huge and every yard counts. Ebner had only 1 return longer than 25, and him and Smith-Marsette had 4 KRs less than 25 yds.

Fields may be the biggest conflict I have ever had with the eye test vs stats. I can't tell you how many times I have discounted his actual stats because of how he looked in the game. I just think he is not ready. There is no turning back now though, it's not like you can put Trevor in there to start over him. He has two weeks (maybe only 1 with how NYG looked) to get things going.

So Gordon got completely shredded last night on multiple plays (no help from Jackson on one of them), but the alternative in the 2nd Round was a WR. There were 6 WRs selected after Gordon in the 2nd Round (and before Velus Jones). Here are there stats after 2 weeks: Wan'Dale Robinson 1-5 John Metchie - no stats Tyquan Thornton - no stats George Pickens 2-26 Alec Pierce - no stats Skyy Moore 1-30 Pickens may have the best chance to pan out, maybe one of the injured guys does, but I don't know if any of them would help our putrid offense right now. If Mooney has only 2 receptions, most of these guys wouldn't even have a target on the Bears yet.

So now after this one I have concerns about Fields. 11 Pass attempts in a double digit loss. On the 4 and goal missed sneak drive, I don't even know if he attempted a single pass. He is now getting to historic levels of bad and even I am making excuses for him. Bad O-Line, no WRs, etc, etc. However, no other QB with comparable situations is doing this bad. For comparison, Mitch was in a new scheme with a new HC in Year 2 and didn't have stinkers like this. In no way am I writing Fields off after 2 weeks, but man, he needs to shows something soon. Fields had the lowest QBR ever for a QB last year and has now opened up this year WITH AN EVEN LOWER QBR (24.0) only higher than Maker Bayfield (23.8) who has been awful. The same bad trend line has not moved. He has a couple of blips but his overall pattern trends as a mediocre NFL backup.

The refs again impacted the game. If you look at all the big GB plays, they are blatantly holding and are rarely called. On the Gipson sack, he was literally mugged, they called a penalty, then picked up the flag. That may not seem like a big deal but it's 2 more yards. Then on the long screen that followed, 2 OLinemen were past the LOS before the pass, which is a penalty, again, not called. Once I saw that on back to back plays, I knew it was game over. On their longer punt return watch the blocker launch our gunner past the punt returner (from behind) just because he was already running that way doesn't not make it a block in the back. No call. Then on the Fields no TD. On replay, you can see the ball. The Bears are still to blame, but the officials are undefeated.