Comparing Justin Fields rookie season with Chicago Bears to Zach Wilson

Justin Fields came in a draft class that many will view as historic. Three quarterbacks went in the top three picks, and then Justin Fields and Mac Jones capped it off with five in the first round. That rarely occurs, and the Chicago Bears are hoping that this caused their future franchise quarterback to slip to them.

With such a historic class it is worth looking into how these rookie quarterbacks stack up to each other. They will be held up against each other every year for the rest of their careers, hopefully similarly to Ben Roethlisberger, Eli Manning, and Phillip Rivers.

Justin Fields and Zach Wilson did not have the strongest years, which one was better off?

Comparing Justin Fields rookie season with Chicago Bears to Zach Wilson

Below you can see the raw stats breakdown. We will get a bit more advanced later.

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You can see some green and red for both, but fortunately for Fields, the green that tends to favor Wilson are the volume stats. That makes sense because Wilson started three more games. Both missed time due to injury, but Wilson was slated to start from the jump and his three-game lead held up.

He has more attempts, yards, and touchdowns, but also more sacks. All of those add up because of added playing time. Wilson did have a better yard per carry and more rushing touchdowns, which likely would have been an underdog to occur before the season. Wilson was benefited from a long touchdown run against the Jaguars, but still, something to note.

Aside from that, you are seeing some of the per attempt stats go towards Fields. He has a better touchdown rate and interception rate. He also beats Wilson in yards per attempt, even when you adjust for interceptions, touchdowns, and sacks.

It is worth noting that while Wilson has more sacks, Fields does have the worse sack rate. Still, on top of that, Fields has roughly 240 more rushing yards and would be looked at as a much more efficient runner minus that highlight-worthy Wilson rush.

Justin Fields and Zach Wilson Advanced State comparison

Thanks to RBSDM.com we can go beyond the box score and weigh some of their opportunities with NextGen data. Expected points added, and completion percent over expectation are highlighted using game situation and probability during the play so they are much more context-driven. Below we see how the two compare.

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Like many of the raw efficiency stats, these stats favor Justin Fields over Zach Wilson across the board. It starts with the idea that Fields pushes the ball downfield more. Despite that, his completion rate over expectation is 7.5 points higher, and his successes rate is nearly 4% better.

You can see that when you multiply his expected points added and add it to CPOE that Fields is adding positive value while Wilson is negative. Fields is higher in expected points per play and adjusted as well.

Lastly, Tucker Boynton put together a comparison tool that uses more advanced stats, as well as some we saw. The red shows that neither was high compared to their peer this season. Still, you can see how the two stack up in these stats and get an explanation of the stats in the image.

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Fans that scream that the Chicago Bears had bad wide receivers and a bad offensive line need to realize that statistically speaking, the Jets were worse in both areas this year. Still, Fields is once again better across the board, but mainly in CPOE, and PFF grades.

The context says that you should give Wilson some benefit of the doubt. However, it also says that Fields was not in a dream situation either. Beyond that, he did not even start week one, while the entire offseason was built around Zach Wilson being the guy from the jump.

Justin Fields clearly had a better rookie season than Zach Wilson. Whatever that means for their future is still up and the air, but no matter how you break these two down, you have to point to Justin Fields.