Stats that show exactly why the Chicago Bears are right about Justin Fields
Alright, let’s truly look at these stats that NFL pundits are hung up on regarding Justin Fields. Let’s just ignore how much progress Justin Fields has made over the last season. Then, let’s stop the nonsense, shall we?
Look, Justin Fields isn’t perfect. I’ve said over and over again that he needs to do a better job with his anticipatory throws. He doesn’t trust his receivers enough to throw them open or into tight coverage. Darnell Mooney was the closest to trustworthy for him and he missed the back half of the season. He also didn’t check the ball down to his running backs enough. That said, he’s only started 25 games over the last two years — essentially a year and a half.
Now, let’s start with LeSean McCoy’s nonsense. He starts off by discussing Justin Fields’ completion percentage and makes the correct statement that Fields is 31st in the league with only Baker Mayfield and Zach Wilson worse than him. However, what he fails to note is that since Week 5, when Fields started showing drastic improvement, Fields had a completion percentage of 62.88%. That would have moved him up to 24th.
Now, if we look at the New England game (game after mini-bye) and beyond, that number jumps up to 63.16% and would be good for 22nd and nearly the same completion percentage as Josh Allen. This also includes Week 17. That was Fields’ worst game of the year and he had a completion percentage of only 33.33%. Take that game off the table and add Weeks 5 and 6 back on and his completion percentage jumps up to 65.84% and puts him 16th in the league.
Context matters.
Now, let’s look at the next stat that McCoy throws out there. If we look at Justin Fields’ passing yards, it’s not great on their own. He is averaging only 149.5 yards per game passing. But, if you throw in his rushing yards, that number jumps up to 225.7 total yards per game. Let’s see what that looks like in context. Well, he’d be 17th. Funny enough, that’s just ahead of Aaron Rodgers who only averaged 222.9 total yards per game.
One last thing as we look at how Justin Fields progressed. If we look at Week 5 through the end of the season again, that total yards per game jumps to 252 yards per game. This puts him ahead of guys like Derek Carr, and Dak Prescott and very close to Trevor Lawrence and Geno Smith — two quarterbacks who had solid seasons statistically. These numbers are also deflated by a game vs the Bills that was below zero and Fields only put up 130 total yards — Josh Allen only had 213. Without that one outlier of a game, his total yardage per game average jumps up to 264.
Again, context matters.