Justin Fields has finished his 2nd NFL season, and the Bears have clearly committed to him as their quarterback for at least 2023. With that in mind, let’s take stock of how Fields grew (and didn’t grow) from his rookie season, where his strengths and weaknesses lie, and what he needs to improve to take the next step.

Like I did with Fields in Focus last offseason, this will be an in-depth series exploring several different aspects of Fields’ performance in 2022. The overall breakdown will look like this:

• Part 1: Comparison to rookie season and growth throughout 2022
• Part 2: Where and how effectively Fields threw the ball.
• Part 3: How Fields did on different types of plays (play action, quick vs. slow developing).
• Part 4: How often Fields was under pressure, and who was to blame.
• Part 5: How Fields performed under pressure.
• Part 6: How efficiently Fields produced explosive plays.
• Part 7: How Fields did against man and zone.
• Part 8: Fields’ future outlook.

Rookie Comparison

Let’s start today by taking a brief look at Fields’ basic statistics and how they compared to his rookie year. The table below shows how the two seasons stack up, as well as the NFL average for 2022 (calculated by team for any volume stats).

A few thoughts:

• The first thing that stands out is that Fields threw the ball less often in year two than year one. On the surface, this seems surprising, as usually teams will ask a QB to throw more often as he matures.
  • I was tempted to chalk this up to Fields taking more sacks and scrambling more frequently in 2022, but that hypothesis didn’t pan out. Fields was sacked 3.6 times/game as a rookie and 3.7 times/game in 2022, and Pro Football Focus (PFF) charted Fields with 4.5 scrambles/game in his rookie season compared to 4.7 scrambles/game in year two. Adding in sacks and scrambles, Fields dropped back to pass 35 times/game as a rookie and 29 times/game in year two.
  • The difference, then, comes from the new offensive scheme, which was intentionally more run heavy. In 2021, the Bears ran it on 44% of offensive plays, but that increased to 56% in 2022.
• Taking more sacks is worrying. Ideally you would like to see that rate go down as Fields gets more familiar with the speed of NFL defenses, as happened throughout the course of his rookie season. We’ll look at sacks and pressure in more detail later in this series, but this is definitely something that needs to improve. An optimist could say this is largely due to the talent the Bears lost on offense after 2021 more than anything Fields did, as Allen Robinson, Jason Peters, and James Daniels all left in free agency and there were essentially no resources invested in replacing them.

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When creating a big board for the Chicago Bears ahead of tonight’s NFL Draft, it’s important to consider separate categories.

Ryan Poles has spoken about “blue” and “red” players. Blue players are obviously the elite, reds are a step down. He hasn’t been consistent in how many blue players he sees in this draft, but he had indicated that he thinks the team can get one with the ninth pick. Though he previously said there were seven blue players, including quarterbacks, we can probably figure out which players he might target early.

But there is another option.

The Bears don’t want to make a pick at nine. They’d certainly like to move back and pick up an earlier second-round pick, giving them two in the top 50. That opens up many other options But if the Bears stay at nine, they have to take a blue player.

On Tuesday, Ian Cunningham said there are six-to-eight players the Bears were comfortable taking with the ninth overall pick. I’m betting the list includes the likes of Will Anderson and Tyree Wilson, who aren’t likely to be there. I’m also comfortable with assuming Devon Witherspoon will be gone. With that, I took a shot at guessing the players atop the Bears board.

Blue Players

1. Paris Johnson Jr., OT, Ohio St.

If there is an offensive lineman worth taking with a top-10 pick this year, it’s Johnson.

Unlike Peter Skoronski, Johnson has the length to translate seamlessly to the NFL. And unlike Broderick Jones, Johnson is polished enough to play immediately.

Johnson will need to add strength and refine his technique, but he certainly has the upside to lock down the left tackle position for years. Johnson isn’t the best player on this list, but he would fill the biggest need.

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If the Chicago Bears deem Jalen Carter’s tape good enough to warrant being selected with the ninth overall pick, they shouldn’t hesitate to turn in the card.

The conversation regarding Carter’s “off the field concerns” has gone way beyond logic. Carter pleaded no contest to two misdemeanor charges of reckless driving and racing and was sentenced to 12 months of probation, a $1,000 fine and 80 hours of community service. The charges stem from an incident last January in which Carter was involved in a race that led to a crash that killed Georgie football player Devin Willock and recruiting staffer Chandler LeCroy. Carter’s lawyer said the Georgia standout did not cause the crash, nor was he under the influence of drugs or alcohol. And there’s no evidence to suggest otherwise.

Yet, he is being treated as if he is a hardened criminal.

Last week, ESPN 1000’s David Kaplan compared Carter’s situation to a player who was “kicked out of the NBA for cocaine.” Doing the math on Kaplan’s story, he’s possibly talking about Duane Washington, who was 24 years old when he was suspended for two years after testing positive for cocaine in 1988.

Another possibility is Mitchell Wiggins, who was 28 when he tested positive for cocaine and was suspended for two years.

Carter is a 21-year-old college student who raced a car.

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Generally speaking, the best way to create a good offensive line is to invest resources into it. That’s what makes Ryan Poles’ decisions up front so confusing.

When Poles was hired, much was made of his work to help rebuild Kansas City’s offensive line as it went from a unit that couldn’t keep Patrick Mahomes on his feet to one of the best on the league. That rebuild included some major investments, including a trade for Orlando Brown Jr., a contract that made Joe Thuney among the highest-paid guards in the NFL and a second-round pick spent on Creed Humphrey. In one offseason, the Chiefs made their offensive line great again.

So, why won’t emphasize the position in Chicago?

The reasoning for not signing Brown to the Bears was sound. The Bears like to get their offensive tackles in space, getting to the second level of the defense. Brown isn’t the most mobile tackle.

But their hardline stance on Mike McGlinchey is confusing.

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Prior days explored the tackles and guards, and today will focus on center, with a bonus glance at tight end and wide receiver blocking.

Center

Let’s start with center, the last position on the offensive line and an area that has been held down exclusively by Sam Mustipher for the last two seasons.

Pass Blocking

The table below shows how Mustipher held up in pass protection compared to the 39 centers around the NFL who had at least 200 pass blocking snaps. All data is from Pro Football Focus (PFF), and true pass sets are intended to remove plays designed to minimize the pass rush, such as screens, play action, and rollout. Cells highlighted in green indicate a rank in the top 25%, while red indicates the bottom 25%.

There’s really only one takeaway here: Sam Mustipher is awful in pass protection. Every column that’s not red just missed the cutoff. (Every Bears fan already knows this, so I don’t think we’re breaking any new ground.)

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Yesterday, we explored the tackles, where Braxton Jones looks like a solid starter. Today, we will look at the guards.

Pass Blocking

The Bears had four guards play meaningful snaps last year, and the table below shows how they held up in pass protection compared to the 77 guards around the NFL who had at least 200 pass blocking snaps (Lucas Patrick did not have enough snaps to qualify, so his ranks are where he would have fit if he did). All data is from Pro Football Focus (PFF), and true pass sets are intended to remove plays designed to minimize the pass rush, such as screens, play action, and rollout. Cells highlighted in green indicate they ranked in the top 25%, while red indicates the bottom 25%.

A few thoughts:

• Like we saw with the tackles, the Bears minimized the amount of true pass sets in order to protect an offensive line that they didn’t trust to hold up in protection. And like we saw with tackles, they generally had good reason not to trust the line, as there’s a whole lot of red and not a lot of green in this chart.
• Looking at individual players, the top three aren’t too bad. Nobody really stands out as being all that good, but they’re mostly around average to maybe a bit below average.
• Lucas Patrick, on the other hand, was horrible. I know he struggled through injuries last year, but he was legitimately one of the worst guards in the NFL.

Teven Jenkins got a lot of hype from Bears fans last year, but he seemed to struggle a bit as a pass protector, especially in true pass sets. Of course, it was his first season as a starter, so it’s possible that he improved as the season went on, like we saw from Braxton Jones yesterday. The table below looks at his performance when splitting the season into four-game intervals. Jenkins got hurt during the season in 2022, so he only played five games from Week 9 on, and those are all put into one sample.

Here you can see that some improvement was made as a pass protector, at least based on PFF’s grades. This is especially evident in the true pass sets, which is where Jenkins most struggled. Hopefully that progress can continue going forward.

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Free agency is right around the corner, and the Bears have money to spend. In order to best understand which positions they need to prioritize, it helps to examine who they have coming back. I already did that at both defensive end and defensive tackle, and this week the focus shifts to the offensive line. That starts today with a look at the tackles.

Pass Blocking

The Bears had three offensive tackles play meaningful snaps last year, and the table below shows how they held up in pass protection compared to the 79 tackles around the NFL who had at least 200 pass blocking snaps. All data is from Pro Football Focus (PFF), and true pass sets are intended to remove plays designed to minimize the pass rush, such as screens, play action, and rollout. Cells highlighted in green indicate they ranked in the top 25%, while red indicates the bottom 25%.

A few thoughts:

• The first thing to notice is that the Bears utilized true pass sets at among the lowest rate of any NFL team last year. This indicates the lack of trust they had in their offensive line. To think of it another way, the Bears helped their offensive line in pass protection more than pretty much any NFL team.
• The rest of the data makes it pretty clear why the Bears didn’t trust their tackles to hold up in pass protection. All three of them ranked below average in pretty much every category.
• This data is especially concerning for Braxton Jones, who graded the worst of the three but is generally expected to be Chicago’s starting left tackle in 2023. However, he was a rookie in 2022, so perhaps he showed growth throughout the season. To check that hypothesis, the table below shows how he graded if you split the season into four-game samples. (Five games at the end of the year. Curse you, 17th game for messing up the easy sample breakdown!)

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With the first pick and the possibility of getting more selections, all eyes are going to be on the Chicago Bears in Indianapolis this weekend.

In the second year of the Ryan Poles and Matt Eberflus regime, we have a better idea of what kind of players the team is looking to add. Beyond just the standard answer they give regarding players who fit the mental makeup they want, the Bears brass reiterated some of the physical attributes for which they are looking.

Here are four things to look for:

Quarterbacks

The Bears once again refused to offer unwavering commitment to Justin Fields as their quarterback and on Tuesday morning Poles made it sound as if the team is keeping its options open.

The door might only be open a crack, but if the Bears weren’t at least considering drafting a quarterback with the first overall pick, there would be no reason not to slam it shut. The idea that they need to make teams think they’re going draft a quarterback simply for leverage doesn’t make any sense. The only team that might panic is Houston, which would be more nervous about the idea the Colts are going to take a quarterback.

Compare it to the Eagles last year who, when rumor about interest in Russell Wilson or drafting a quarterback surfaced, said “there’s no doubt about it” when asked if Jalen Hurts was the team’s future at the position.

Nobody honestly expects the Bears to take a quarterback, but their refusal to say “this is Fields’ team” is weird. When teams are confident in their quarterback, they are almost always willing to broadcast that to the world.

The most likely explanation is that the Bears would be happy going forward with Fields as the quarterback, but would like to see if they can upgrade. There’s nothing wrong with that.

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In part one, we found that the Bears actually had a respectable pass rush for the first part of the year, but trading Robert Quinn had a profound impact, leaving them with the worst pass rush of any NFL team in the last five years post-trade.

In part two, we found that Trevis Gipson is a quality second defensive end, but only if there is a quality starter opposite him, which the Bears will need to find this offseason.

The Inside Men

The Bears had four defensive tackles with at least 150 pass rush snaps in 2022, and three of them – Armon Watts, Angelo Blackson, and Mike Pennel Jr. – are free agents, so it will be very easy to remake this position substantially if they want to.

The table below shows how those four performed in a variety of per-snap metrics, including how they ranked compared to the 104 defensive tackles league-wide who had at least 150 pass rush snaps. All data comes from Pro Football Focus (PFF). (Side note: Pass Rush Productivity is a unique PFF stat that accounts for all sacks, QB hits, and pressures on a per-snap basis, with an added weight given to sacks; a higher value is better.) Values in the top 25% are highlighted in green, while those in the bottom 25% are highlighted in red.

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Every Bears fan knows the team had a terrible pass rush last year, which is why they have been heavily rumored to be interested in high-priced free agent defensive linemen and highly regarded pass rushers at the top of the draft. But to better understand what the Bears need, let’s first look at exactly how bad they were last year, and what they have returning. That will help figure out exactly what they need to add in order to bring their pass rush up to par in 2023.

Team Pass Rush

All of this data will be pulled from Pro Football Reference, which has advanced statistics going back to 2018. That gives us a sample size of five seasons, or 160 teams.

However, I found that pass rush has varied quite a bit from year to year, with the average pressure rate fluctuating between 22% and 26% and the sack rate between 5.9% and 6.8%. In a simple effort to scale statistics for a between the years comparison, I looked at the sack or pass rush differential. For example, in 2022 the average pressure rate was 22.3%, so a team generating pressure on 23.3% of dropbacks was 1.0% above average, or would have a pressure differential of 1.0%. That same 23.3% would be 2.0% below the 25.3% average in 2021, so it would get a -2.0% pressure differential that year.

The table below shows how the Bears fared in the major pass rush stats compared to all 160 teams since 2018. Areas where they ranked in the top 25% are highlighted in green, while those where they ranked in the bottom 25% are highlighted in red.

As you can see, it’s not pretty. Chicago’s pass rush was among the worst in the NFL over the last five years in every category. This shouldn’t be a shock to anybody who watched the Bears last year.

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