Chicago Bears Fantasy Football: Should you draft Justin Fields?
By Nick Skrip
The Chicago Bears ended up drafting Velus Jones, Jr. with the 71st overall pick in the 2022 Draft. They also brought in WRs Byron Pringle, N’Keal Harry, Equanimeous St. Brown, Tajae Sharpe, Isaiah Coulter, and Dante Pettis along with TEs Ryan Griffin and James O’Shaughnessy.
Not to be overly critical and I will keep it short, but there is nothing exciting or overly helpful for Justin Fields there. They are more like guys who are just guys in my opinion. There have also been some attempts to boost the offensive line, but not as strong of an attempt as some others have through the draft and free agency across the league. I am in on Darnell Mooney and Cole Kmet as pass-catchers for Fields, but that is about it.
Despite the lack of true help added to the Chicago Bears this off-season, I still believe in the former Ohio State QB who totaled a career of 5,701 passing yards, 67 passing TDs, 1,133 rushing yards, and 19 rushing TDs as a prospect. We knew he was a dual-threat QB coming out of college. We saw it in 2021 as a rookie and we will see it in 2022. The upside along with a cushioned floor for fantasy scoring was outlined earlier in this article, and definitely will apply to Justin Fields this season.
Justin Fields right now has an ADP (Average Draft Position) of QB17 off the board and is the 127th overall player drafted. Based strictly on where he is going in drafts, he would not be a starter in a 10 or 12-team fantasy football league that starts one QB. Does this mean you should avoid Fields based on that in your fantasy football drafts? No.
Whenever you are drafting for your bench in fantasy football, you should be drafting players with upside. If you are drafting a WR for your bench, you typically are choosing the player who may look inconsistent but could explode for 15-20 fantasy points over a player that is a safe 8-10 fantasy points.
This can mean the same for a quarterback, especially a dual-threat one who may have their down weeks but can also have a week where they go for over 20 fantasy points. Drafting for upside can mean taking chances, and I believe Justin Fields at his current cost is worth taking the chance on for your bench.
Seeing the top-10 QB performances in year one with the examples given of hitting specific categories is encouraging for more of that to come in 2022. Will that be consistent on a weekly basis? Probably not. We also spoke of the Konami Code QB and the impact of that on fantasy — which is a category Justin Fields fits into evidenced by his top-5 rushing total despite playing only nine full games.
When you draft your starting QB for fantasy in your league, I believe Justin Fields will be the perfect backup for a bye week, an injury, or a poor matchup. There is also a real chance he outperforms his QB17 ADP if his upside does indeed become more consistent than not. Draft for upside for your fantasy benches. Talent plus athleticism beats situation from time to time.
The 2019 Josh Allen breakout occurred on a roster where he featured John Brown and Cole Beasley as his two primary weapons — maybe in 2022 we can see Justin Fields mirror that sort of narrative.