Justin Fields‘ season debut and first time playing in a Luke Getsy offense was a bit different than what you would expect. The weather causes you to throw most of it out of the window. Still, there are minor things worth picking up on and seeing if they become trends with the Chicago Bears this year.
These are three stats that are at least notable, and we will have to keep an eye on if this is what we should expect.
3. Chicago Bears ran more screens and play action
The first note is more of a product of the offense than it is a stat that tells us much about Justin Fields. However, one thing it does tell us is that Luke Getsy is working to help Justin Fields more often. We highlighted that initially as the team gave their lineman plenty of chip support.
Beyond that, Getsy helped Fields and the offensive line by getting the ball out of his hands quicker. Under Matt Nagy, Fields threw a screen pass 6.2% of the time. That number is up to 21.7% through one game.
The weather may have impacted that, but even at 9% less, it is double last season. Fields had an 89.2 passer rating on screenplays, and a 67.4 on non-screen plays, so it was obvious that the screens were helping.
Beyond that, they ran play-action 34.8% of the time. That is another step up from 23.8% last season. Getsy is causing confusion in the defense which makes life easier for his quarterback. He had a 116.7 passer rating on play action, and a 60 passer rating on non-play action plays.
Last season he had a 102 passer rating on play action, and 116.4 rating on screens. Still, they called those types of plays 26.8% less than Getsy did on Sunday. That is a pretty significant change.
2. Time To Throw
One thing that the increase in screens did not do was have Justin Fields lower his time to throw. After having the third longest time to throw last season, at 3.08 seconds, he was at 3.64 this season.
Some of that is aided by the long extension he made to lead to the Dante Pettis touchdown. Still, he only had 21% of his attempts where he got the football out within 2.5 seconds. Last season, 40% of the pass attempts he threw were under 2.5 seconds.
If you look back, he threw a screen on 21% of his attempts, so unless Getsy dialed up a screen, he did not get the ball out fast. This can be negative and positive. Negative in that he may need to speed things up, but positive in that Matt Nagy was forcing him to do the quick game, and that was not his style. Now, the only quick game they do is the screen game.
Last season he had a 5.11 time to scramble rate, which is up to 6.05 now. This shows that he is using an extra second in the pocket to extend plays as a passer, and not bailing to run as often. Again, this is more about just highlighting some changes and notable stats from his first game. It will be interesting to see how this trend continues, especially the fact that he had no pass attempts under 2.5 seconds that were not screenplays.
1. Deep field aggression
One of the biggest takeaways from Fields and his rookie season was that he was a big game hunter. He was always willing to take the big shot over the short and safe route. That is what led to his time to throw being high, but it is also what led to him and Matt Nagy not being a fit.
Justin Fields still finished third in deep ball rate last season, at 15.9% While this number is obviously skewed, over a third of his attempts on Sunday went over 20 yards, which is a 35.3% rate.
Nobody is saying this will be the norm, but you can see a trend start to shine through between him and Luke Getsy. They appear to be willing to utilize the screen game and then use that to have cornerbacks creep up, which will lead to the explosive passing game.
With that said, 64.7% of his attempts on Sunday were either behind the line of scrimmage, or twenty yards or further. Only 36.3% of his passes were between one and 20 yards. Last season 24% of his attempts were behind the line, or deep, while 76% were in the one to 20-yard range.
That is not going to continue this significantly, but it shows you exactly how Fields plays and exactly how they plan to use him.
It should be no shock that he led NFL passers in 20-yard attempt rate and behind the line of scrimmage attempt rate. We will see if this continues as well.