A positive to note though, is his ability to throw the football away now. Last season he only threw it away 16 times in 15 games. He's already thrown it away 24 times in 10 games this year. Also, his "percentage of pressures turned into sacks" rate (P2S%) has improved. In his rookie season, he had a rate of 23.8%. That jumped up to 27.1% last year, but he has it down to 18.9% this year. That's still a little too high though. For comparison, Patrick Mahomes' rate is averaged at 11.0% for his career. Josh Allen's rate is 13.4% for his career. That said, Aaron Rodgers has a 20.6 P2S% for his career.
According to Pro Football Focus, Justin Fields has also brought his "turnover-worthy play" rate (TWP%) down. In his rookie year, he had a 3.7% TWP% rate. That jumped to 4.4% last year but has been brought down to his best yet at 3.2%. Again, for comparison, Aaron Rodgers has a 2.2 TWP% over his career. Mahomes is at 2.8% for his career, while Josh Allen is at 3.7% — however, his 2023 TWP% is only 2.4%.
The point is that Justin Fields has shown improvement in many areas. The problem is, has the improvement been enough for Ryan Poles to ignore the fact he could end up with the top pick in the NFL Draft once again? This time though, the top two quarterback prospects are much better prospects this year than they were in 2023. Even so, C.J. Stroud (my top QB in last year's draft) has exploded on the scene this year. Can Poles really stick with Fields again despite the improvement not being drastic, or will he move on and reset the QB rookie contract with a player of his choosing?