Chicago Bears: 3 key observations of Justin Fields vs the Bengals

Observation No. 2 of Chicago Bears QB, Justin Fields: His accuracy

If you look at the Chicago Bears and Bengals stat sheet, Justin Fields did not perform well on paper. He finished with only a 46.2% completion percentage, no touchdowns and an interception. This is just another example of how you cannot use a box score to determine how a player performed. Watching the film adds so much context to a situation.

When it comes to Justin Fields’ performance, he was actually very accurate despite the completion percentage. For one, he only threw 13 passes — completing six of them. However, his wide receivers had three balls that could have and should have been caught. Had just one of those balls been caught, his completion percentage would have been 52.8%. If two of those three were caught it would be 61.5%.

Justin Fields also only threw for 60 yards. However, one of those dropped balls was to Darnell Mooney and would have been a completion of over 20 yards. One of the other balls was not really a drop, just great coverage by the Bengals. It was a jump ball to Allen Robinson that could have gone either way. Imagine if it was caught though. Add another eight yards to Fields’ stat line, along with a touchdown. They settled for a field goal.

Finally, the last one that jumped out at me was a deep ball of around 40 yards to Allen Robinson. It was well covered, but the ball was put perfectly by Justin Fields and Robinson let it go right through his breadbasket and arms. This could have been touchdown number two on the day and changed the box score drastically.

Now, the interception he threw was awful. That is not like Fields and he needs to use that as a learning experience. The Bengals had been bringing the pressure and even did it again on this play, but Logan Wilson dropped back into coverage and Fields just did not see him when making his read and throw. This had less to do with accuracy though and all to do with reading the defense and decision-making while under pressure.