The Chicago Bears are now 1-0 with Tyson Bagent this season and 1-5 with Justin Fields. The opponent has to do with it, but there are notable differences between the two and their playing styles. What stood out the most through one start?
3. The Chicago Bears called short passes for Tyson Bagent
The Chicago Bears kept things simple and near the line of scrimmage for Tyson Bagent. So far this season, 12 of his 39 passes have been thrown behind the line of scrimmage, and 28 have been within ten yards of the line of scrimmage. On Sunday, 72.4% of his passing attempts were within ten yards of the line, and his average depth of target was 2.4 yards down the field.
For comparison, 61.1% of the passes that Fields has thrown this year were within ten yards. Fields has a 16% deep ball rate, while Bagent is at 4.7. For his career, the lowest ADOT game Justin Fields ever had was 3.3, and that was this season. This year, his ADOT is at 8.4 yards down the field, so on average, he is six yards further per attempt than Bagent.
However, for his career, Justin Fields has a 9.5 average depth of target. So, Luke Getsy had already been trying to bring Fields in with more short passing attempts. Since Getsy had the chance to do it more with Tyson Bagent, that is the route he went.
Two things that could be true are that the Raiders did not know what to expect, they prepared for a little more downfield passing, and the change was surprising. Also, the offense that Getsy wants to run is more suited for a quarterback who gets the ball out in the short areas, and he is not looking for that downfield attack.
2. Tyson Bagent was getting rid of the football fast
This makes sense when you consider Bagent was not throwing the ball down the field, and Justin Fields did, but Bagent had a much quicker time to throw. His time to throw on Sunday was 2.87 seconds, and it has been 2.67 this year.
On the flip side, Field time to throw was 3.23 this season, and the lowest time to throw he had all season was 3.06. Fields only had three games with time to throw lower than Bagent in his entire career, and a lot of them came with Matt Nagy. For some reason, with Luke Getsy he has not gotten the ball out, although his time to throw was down this year.
Bagent had 51.1% of his dropbacks see the ball out of his hands by 2.5 seconds. Justin Fields is at 32.4% in the same stat this season. However, it is worth noticing that Fields averages 7.5 yards per attempt on those quick passes, while Bagent is at 5.5. Fields' passer rating is 118.1 when he gets the ball out quickly, and Bagent is 89.6.
On the flip side, when Fields holds the ball for more than 2.5 seconds, his passer rating is 76.1, and Bagent is 75.1. This is interesting to see because the thought is that Justin Fields struggles in the quick game, but when he does do it, it is effective. His issue is that he does not get the ball out often enough to make the quick game passing work.
1. Tyson Bagent was not taking sacks as much as Justin Fields
It is hard to take as many sacks as Justin Fields, but Sam Howell is showing it may be able to get done. However, Tyson Bagent is showing that even a rookie UDFA can avoid sacks better than those two. Right now, he has a 13.3% pressure-to-sack rate, and that comes with a 10% pressure-to-sack rate against the Las Vegas Raiders. That is impressive when you compare it to Justin Fields.
Fields has gone under 10% in his pressure-to-sack rate just two times. Interestingly enough, they both came against the Green Bay Packers. This year, his lowest P2S rate was also against Green Bay, but his rate this year is 22.8%. His lowest this year is 15.4%. This is rough, but last year, his P2S was at 25.1%, so you can say that is an improvement.
Beyond that, Justin Fields invites more pressure as well. He is responsible for 18.1% of the pressure that he faced this year, per PFF. Bagent is at 14.3% for this season. Once again, Fields has shown improvement here because last year, he was at 23.9% of the pressure responsibility. Still, that is not nearly as good as where he needs to be.
One big issue is that Fields has taken six sacks and has a pressure-to-sack rate of 31.6% in 2.5 seconds or less. Bagent has yet to take a sack when he held the ball for under 2.5 seconds. Some of this is on the line for allowing the pressure, but the big difference here is that Fields holds the ball when quick pressure comes, and Bagent gets rid of it.