adam

I doubt it, this is his 2nd set of coaches, both who believed they could unlock something. LONG POST COMING - SORRY IN ADVANCE: I did a little digging and looked at Fields career numbers vs the collective QBs that played in the same offenses, with same players, and same coaches as he did over the last 3 seasons. Here are the passing numbers: Fields - 35 starts, 8-27 W-L, 532-883, 60.2%, 6,088 yds, 38 TD, 29 INT, 165 yds per game, 6.9 Y/A, 126 sacks, 2 4Q Comebacks, 1x 300yd passing game, 25 Att/g Other QBs - 13 starts, 6-7 W-L, 296-465, 63.7%, 2,947yds, 14 TD, 17 INT, 227 yds per game, 6.3 Y/A, 31 sacks, 2 4Q Comebacks, 2x 300yd passing games, 36 Att/g (Dalton, Bagent, Foles, Peterman, Siemian) Fields obviously has a huge advantage in rushing, especially from last year, but also led with fumbles by a large margin, so the TD to Turnover ratio is a lot closer if you add rushing. The biggest thing that stands out to me is Fields numbers are way too close to some bottom of the barrel QBs (Peterman, Siemian, etc) in the same conditions. If you add Fields' rushing numbers the yards per game are much closer, but Fields is still lower (which I thought was odd), so while he scored more, the offense was worse. Then as you move right along the stats, the most glaring difference is sacks. In 2.5x starts, Fields has 4x the sacks. Those are basically a triple negative plays (fewer pass attempts, lost yardage, and loss of down). So even though Fields has a better TD ratio, especially with his rushing scores, the negative plays outweigh them. Fields has 155 Sacks+INTs (4.43/g), while the other QBs have 48 (3.69/g). If I include fumbles, it obviously makes it worse on Fields. Even without the fumbles, every game Fields basically has one extra impactful negative play than the other QBs, which equates to basically 2 pts lost per game. With 35 starts, that is 70 pts taken off the board (as just a difference to the other QBs) not overall. Again, this is Fields compared to arguably some really bad QBs. Fields should be light years ahead of these guys and yet ultimately the net results are very similar. The last thing is, Fields has won 8 games in 2.5 seasons of starting, here are the teams he beat and how he performed in those wins: 1. DET (3-13-1) - Fields 209 yds passing, 0 TD, 1 INT, 82.7 QB Rating 2. LVR (10-7) - Fields 111 yds passing, 1 TD, 0 INT, 91.9 QB Rating 3. SF (13-4) - Fields 121 yds passing, 2 TD, 1 INT, 85.7 QB Rating 4. HOU (3-13-1) - 106 yds passing, 0 TD, 2 INT, 27.7 QB Rating 5. NE (8-9) - Fields 179 yds passing, 1 TD, 1 INT, 1 Rush TD, 85.2 QB Rating 6. WAS (4-10) - Fields 282 yds passing, 4 TD, 0 INT, 125.3 QB Rating 7. MIN (7-7) - Fields 217 yds passing, 0 TD, 0 INT, 87.3 QB Rating 8. DET (10-4) - Fields 223, 1 TD, 0 INT, 1 Rush TD, 88.3 QB Rating How many of those games did Fields actually win? WAS for sure, he was in the zone that game. That is the one game that he outscored the opponent by himself. However, he doesn't have any other wins with 3 TDs, which is what I would consider a QB Win. So out of 35 starts, he has 1 QB Win. That unfortunately is not enough in this day and age of the NFL. He is the most athletically gifted QB the Bears ever have and may be even top 5 in NFL history, but he has not evolved as a passer enough, and when the opponent takes away him as a running threat (send Edge to him every time), we see the results. As a passer, he is basically Gardner Minshew (stats way too close). Minshew is on his 3rd team in 4 years and looks to be a career backup, spot starter. So if you are Poles, you know this, you have seen it. If Fields puts in all that work in the offseason (he has amazing work ethic), between games, and this is all you get for all that effort, unfortunately, that sort of shows where his ceiling is in the NFL. The ceiling is not high enough to overcome the floor, and his games are too inconsistent week in and week out after 35 starts to continue to believe that he will somehow hit the switch and both the floor and ceiling will rise. Now the devil's advocate is that he had bad coaches, but even with the bad coaches, you would think a great QB would separate himself from the other QBs in the same system, especially thru 35 starts. Fields hasn't done that, or hasn't done it enough to warrant a huge contract and extension, AND for the team to forego drafting a QB. BLUF: Fields has improved over 2.5 years, but the development has not been great/fast enough to separate himself from other QBs (who in my opinion were subpar in general) in the same system/conditions. The final 3 games will be an audition for Fields for other teams that believe they can fix him. I honestly expect super conservative game plans to reduce the chance of INTs. These are the numbers and some of my opinion, but I believe it to be as close to factual as I know it. Again I apologize for the long post.

I honestly can't wait, got that huge contract and has coasted ever since.

Fields numbers are trending back to his mean. After that 2 game outburst before his injury, he jumped way ahead of his career averages. Now he is on pace for less TDs than last season per game and his overall yardage per game this year is only 25 more than last year. So the development we expected didn't happen and that's with DJ Moore and an improved OLine. Very unfortunate for him and the team.

At 8-26, Fields would need to go 10-7 for the next 6 years just to get to .500 for his career.

Very true but when they go into prevent that puts a ton of responsibility on your safeties in coverage and unfortunately both of the Bears safeties are terrible in coverage. Brisker is great in the box, but once he is in space he gets exposed. He was involved in both TDs against and Jackson was the one allowing the two other huge chunk plays.

Where is the accountability? Mooney and Tonyan should be healthy scratches next week. Send a message, playing like crap has consequences. Flus would never do that though which is why he needs to go.

This is not an excuse but the refs did the Bears no favors in this game. On the 4th down screen, JJ was clearly held, no call. Then on Njoku TD, his heel is on the white. Fields first INT at the end of the 2nd quarter hit the ground. Fields also got hit late on that throw and didn't get the call again. He has not had a single flag called on a hit on him this year.

I feel like Flus is getting too much credit for this defensive turn around. They brought in Snow as an Advisor, got a ton of players back from injury and traded from Sweat. The takeaways are the players (see Stevenson's pick) moreso than Flus calling an amazing game. Also if you want to give him credit for the great defense because of the turnovers, then he needs to take the blame for the historical 4th quarter defensive meltdowns. So the bad negates the good and you end up with zero lol. Then when you add his terrible HC job, it's easy to see what needs to happen.

Yep, at this point they have their eval of the coaching staff and the players. Nothing they do in the last 3 weeks, especially against ATL and ARZ are going to change that. However if the QBs don't overwhelm them or if they end up at #2, they may keep Fields for Year 4. Remember how many years Trubisky got, and Mitch went 6-3 in his last year on the team.

WR was terrible last year and they only added Moore (who is amazing), but he needs a true wingman. Mooney and Scott are near identical, and guys who cannot block. Velus is a bust. I'm good with Roschon, he just needs to get more touches. Scott has been underwhelming, fumbles, and drops too many passes. Velus drops everything that's why they can only hand the ball off to him. The RBs have been subpar as pass catchers. Fields only has check down on some plays, but not all of them, which is odd.

I'm also concerned about the RB room. Foreman does not look the same since his injury. Herbert absolutely is worse since injury, so the only one looking decent recently is Roschon.

On the flip side, they allowed Flacco to throw for over 200 yards in the 4th quarter, and still allowed a terrible Cleveland offense to score 20 pts.

Yes you did, just confirming with passing map. Btw, can any receiver bail Fields out ever? Not just this game but all season. Scott with a huge drop that hit his hands a few weeks ago, Velus drops everything, Mooney has had a bunch, Tonyan dropped the one today but also dropped a TD a few weeks ago too. There are different levels of drops but these I would consider bad drops. Kmet and Moore have been the only 2 reliable receivers all year.

No MoF no win, not even a single attempt over the middle.

I think Poles whiffed hard on the WR corps. Mooney is not the same player since injury, he is borderline practice squad material at this point. Scott is a younger Mooney who can do anything Mooney can but is probably more of a WR4, then at WR4 you have Velus or ESB? The drop off from Moore to Mooney is too big. WR2 needs to be a stud or at least a compliment to Moore. Mooney is neither. Then for TE they went with Tonyan and he has been one of the most disappointing players this year with a huge drop today.

It's a microcosm of the season and Fields career. I guess people didn't notice Fields has only led 2 TD drives starting from the Bears side of the field in the last 4 games. The defense has been carrying this team for the last 6-7 weeks. Bagent went 2-2 with the defense doing the heavy lifting and Fields now is 2-2 since returning from injury. It shows the QB either doesn't matter or isn't being impactful.

Whoever tried to hit Njoku instead of wrapping him up could've forced Cleveland into a 50+ yard FG too.

We are nearing 40 starts, he is what he is. He may end up with a career arc like Geno Smith but that is the exception not the norm.

I've honestly been on the fence but things are too inconsistent for my blood. Great QBs still look decent in bad situations. Fields' last 3 TD drives going back to last week started on the opponents side of the field. Think about that for a sec. Since he came back from injury he has only led 2x TD drives starting on his side of the 50 in the last 16 quarters. 2 TDs! They are 2-2 in those games even though there have been some dominant defensive numbers.

The Bears lead the NFL in INTs (18) but as a team are -1 on the season for turnover ratio. So as the Bears taketh they giveth away.

Damn, the Bears would've only been one game back of MIN, LAR, and NO and would only need to pass two of them in the last 3 games. Passing MIN and NO was very realistic, what a loss man.

interesting because I keep seeing other stats like Fields is the only QB to end the half and the game with an INT.

and teams have an easy blueprint to shut the Bears down, look at the MIN games too. When there is constant pressure, Fields still doesnt pull the trigger.

People may forget that Pace and Nagy basically got fired for drafting Fields. They only got one year with him and Fields had some issues that many believed were correctable. Then Poles comes in and strips the roster in 2022 giving Fields all the excuses in the world when things went bad. This was supposed to be the no-excuses year and he is basically the exact same guy he has always been. Nothing has changed outside of the fact that he no longer gets the huge scrambles. He has improved marginally statwise, but I think they have purposely avoided plays he can't do like all of the timing and MoF stuff. They know better than anyone what the assessment is, but the numbers don't lie.

Yep and I think the hits have gotten to him. What sucks is there is no way to get a proper evaluation of Fields in meaningless games, and that's what the Bears will have for the next 3. At least with a win, it would've been like a playoff game every week. Now none of those games matter and who know how hard the opponents will be playing. Maybe the GB game, but one game is not going to flip the script as we have seen the same result for a few years now.