This piece looks at how Fields’ performance changed as his rookie season wore on. All stats are from Pro Football Focus (PFF) unless otherwise noted.

General Overview

Let’s start with a general look at Fields’ stats over the course of the year. A few quick notes:

• They are split into three groupings (Weeks 2-5, 6-8, and 9-15), because each group showed some clear distinctions compared to earlier games that I’ll point out below.
• The first and third groups were considered to be 3.5 games for the per-game stats, because Fields played about half of the Cincinnati (Week 2) and Baltimore (Week 11) games.
• Basic passing statistics are shown in blue, basic running statistics in orange, and advanced passing style statistics in green. Basic stats are from Pro Football Reference; advanced stats are from Next Gen Stats.

A few thoughts:

• Those first 3.5 games of Fields’ career were rough. He only completed 50% of his passes, got sacked on 17% of dropbacks, and threw into tight coverage (aggressive throw) over 25% of the time. Basically, he didn’t really know what he was doing. It’s fair to think that being thrown into the fire after the coaches went out of their way to NOT PREPARE him to play during training camp and the preseason hurt him in that regard.
• Starting in Week 6, there are three drastic changes in how Fields operated that made me group these games differently.
  • The first is that the Bears started relying on him a lot more, which you can see by the big jump in dropbacks/game (includes all pass attempts, sacks, and Fields runs, which were mostly scrambles).
  • In the midst of this heavier usage, you can see Fields running the ball far more often and more effectively, which resulted in his sack rate dropping a bit (though it was still high, the league average was 6%).
  • You can also see Fields’ throws into tight coverage drop significantly, which indicates he was doing a better job of finding open players to throw the ball to.
• All three of those Week 6 changes continued throughout the rest of the year, but two more significant factors changed starting in Week 9, which caused me to group those final games separately.
  • First, Fields’ yards/attempt mark made a significant jump. It had been fairly steady in the first two samples but was drastically different in Weeks 9 and beyond. This wasn’t driven by just one game, either; three of Fields’ four outings in weeks 9+ featured a yards/attempt greater than 7, a feat which he had only accomplished once in his first 7 games.
    • For a little more context, Fields’ 6.3 yards/attempt mark through Week 8 would have been 28th of 33 QBs with 200+ pass attempts in 2021, while that 7.8 mark would rank 5th.
  • Second, Fields’ time to throw took a massive jump as well. Through Week 8, he was around league average in that 2.75 second range, while the 3.15 seconds he averaged from Week 9 on would have been the highest in the NFL in 2021.
    • Holding the ball too long can be a problem, as it opens you up to sacks, but Fields’ sack rate dropped here. He even threw it into tight coverage less frequently.
    • Coming out of college, Fields was known as a guy who holds the ball and likes to push it deep. In those final few games of his rookie year, we see him figuring out how to make that style work. That bodes very well for the future.

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This piece will examine how frequently Fields was pressured, who was to blame for that pressure, and how Fields performed when under pressure. All stats are from Pro Football Focus (PFF) unless otherwise noted.

Pressure Frequency

Fields was one of the most heavily pressured QBs in the NFL as a rookie. PFF had him pressured on 43% of dropbacks, the 3rd highest rate of 39 qualifying NFL QBs (34% median, 45% worst). Pro Football Reference, which is more selective with what they consider a pressure, had him at a 27% pressure rate, the 5th highest mark in the NFL (23% median, 31% worst).

The table below shows how much of the pressure for each QB PFF blamed on each position. Fields’ stat is provided, and his rank compared to the other 39 QBs, as well as the range of the other qualifying QBs.  Cells where Fields ranked in the top 10 are highlighted in green, while cells where Fields ranked in the bottom 10 are highlighted in red.

A few thoughts:

• By and large, Fields was not particularly to blame for the pressure he faced. PFF only credited him with being responsible for 13% of his pressures, which was the literal middle of the pack for the 39 QB sample.
• Pressures may not have been his fault, but many sacks were. Fields allowed 24% of his pressures to turn into sacks, which was the 6th worst mark in the NFL (median 17%). This matches Lester Wiltfong’s Sackwatch series, which blamed Fields for 9 of the 36 sacks he took in 2021. If you go back and look at the film breakdown for those (which Lester does for all of them), the majority came when the initial pressure was not his fault, but then Fields could have gotten the ball out or escaped and didn’t.
• In general, the pass blocking from the offensive line ranged from average to below average (again, 20th is the middle of a 39 QB sample). Two spots stood out from that: right guard was pretty good (it’s worth noting RG James Daniels is a free agent) and center was pretty bad. Sam Mustipher has to be upgraded this offseason.
• It’s a small sample size, but the tight ends allowed a high rate of pressure compared to other QBs. When looking at tight ends, PFF had Cole Kmet ranked 43rd and Jesse James 30th in rate of pressures allowed out of 68 total qualified tight ends, which is around average for both, so I’m not sure what happened here. Maybe it’s a small sample size thing, where the tight ends gave up most of their pressures when Fields was in at QB (as opposed to Dalton or Foles).
• I think sample size with running backs (the majority of the other) was probably an issue too. PFF had David Montgomery and Khalil Herbert 25th and 23rd, respectively, in rate of pressures allowed out of 64 qualified running backs, which is a little above average but nothing spectacular.

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Today is the second of seven articles taking a closer look at Justin Fields’ rookie season, looking at how his performance fared in play action vs. standard dropbacks and also how he performed throwing quick passes as opposed to slow-developing plays. All stats are from Pro Football Focus (PFF) unless otherwise noted.

Play Action

Let’s start by looking at how Justin Fields did on play-action dropbacks compared to standard passing plays. Before I present the full data, I want to briefly explain two PFF stats that will be used:

• Big Time Throw: these are best described as a pass with excellent ball location and timing, generally thrown further down the field and/or into a tighter window. In other words, these are really good, difficult passes that should result in highly valuable big plays. A higher % here is better.
• Turnover Worthy Play: These include fumbles in the pocket, interceptions thrown, and interceptable passes that were not caught. A lower % here is better.

Both of these stats will admittedly have some subjectivity inherent, but they provide a useful glimpse into how frequently a QB makes a really good play vs. a really bad one.

The table below shows how Fields performed in a wide variety of statistics in play action (blue) vs. other dropbacks (orange), and also includes Fields’ rank out of 39 total NFL QBs who had at least 20% of the pass attempts of the NFL leader. Information on the spread of all NFL QBs is also provided for each stat. Cells highlighted in green indicate Fields was among the top 10 QBs in this category, while those in red indicate Fields was in the bottom 10 QBs.

A few thoughts:

• Fields’ accuracy and completion percentage were very poor in both samples, but that is to be expected given his accuracy issues, which we looked at in part one of this series. Relatively speaking, he was a little better in play action than out of play action here.
• We also see consistency in Fields pushing the ball down the field regardless of the play time. His average pass was the 3rd deepest in regular passes and the deepest on play action. This is also expected given what we’ve already looked at. Fields likes to go deep.

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Introduction

Justin Fields’ rookie season is over, which means it’s time to evaluate how he did, as well as what it could mean for his career going forward.

Let’s start with a look at the basic stats, which are shown in the table below. In order to give these some more context, I looked at all 33 NFL QBs who had 200 or more pass attempts this year, gave you a feel for the spread of those 33 QBs in each category, and provided Fields’ rank. Cells highlighted in green indicate Fields was in the top 10 for that category, while those highlighted in red indicate Fields was in the bottom 10.

As you can see, this isn’t pretty. Fields ranked in the bottom 5 in every category except yards per passing attempt. It’s definitely a good thing that a quarterback is among the worst in the NFL at completing passes, throwing touchdowns, avoiding interceptions, and avoiding sacks, right? RIGHT?

If you followed the Bears at all closely this year – which I assume applies to most people who read this website – this shouldn’t come as a surprise to you. Fields definitely had his rookie struggles, and we very much see that reflected in the big-picture statistics here.

All in all, I think it’s hard to paint a picture that Fields’ rookie season was anything other than a disappointment. If you had asked me in August if I’d be happy with Fields posting a rookie stat line of 159/270, 1870 yards, 7 TD, 10 INT, 36 sacks, and 12 fumbles, I would have said “no” without even having to think about it. If you’re being honest with yourself, you would have said the same.

But that doesn’t mean Fields’ rookie season was a complete loss. Though the overall results were abysmal, there were some flashes of good present as well, and there are plenty of signs of promise to be found if you’re willing to look. QB play is complicated, and sometimes raw statistics don’t tell the entire story.

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Bears running back David Montgomery has one year remaining on his rookie contract, meaning he is eligible for an early extension if the Bears want to give him one. After George McCaskey specifically praised Montgomery and linebacker Roquan Smith (who is also looking to get paid this offseason) at his end of season press conference in January, many fans speculated that both were about to get paid.

On the surface, an extension could make sense for Montgomery. Since entering the NFL in 2019, he is 6th in the league in carries, 9th in rushing yards, and 12th in rushing touchdowns. But those are volume stats and say nothing about Montgomery beyond his ability to stay healthy and handle a heavy workload. Today I want to take a closer look at Montgomery’s efficiency to see if he is a good running back or just a running back who gets a lot of touches.

Overall Efficiency

Let’s start with a general look at Montgomery’s overall efficiency, measured both in yards/carry and rush yards over expectation/carry (RYOE/carry).

RYOE/carry is a new stat in the last few years, and it’s based on both the position and the movement of all 22 players on the field at the time of handoff. Basically, it projects how many yards an average NFL running back would get in a given carry based on historical data, and then compares how that specific running back did on that play. All RYOE/carry stats are pulled from Tej Seth’s website mfbanalytics.

The table below shows Montgomery’s yards/carry and RYOE/expectation marks for all three of his NFL seasons. It also compares him to the average NFL running back each season, looking only at backs who get 150 or more carries on the year (close to 1/team, so roughly starting NFL running backs).

A few thoughts:

• As you can see, Montgomery has not generally been very efficient. He ranks in the bottom half of all starting running backs in both yards/carry and RYOE/carry in all three seasons.
• You could try to explain away a poor yards/carry mark by pointing out that Chicago’s offensive line, offensive scheme, and offense as a whole have been bad for Montgomery’s career. Those are fair points, which is why I didn’t just want to look at his yards/carry mark when evaluating Montgomery. If that is bad but his underlying metrics are good, it would indicate a good running back trapped in a bad offense.
• RYOE, however, doesn’t support that idea. This stat in particular is intended to isolate the running back’s performance, since the expected yards mark takes into consideration where every other player (both offense and defense) is at the time of handoff, as well as where they’re moving. Therefore, this should remove scheme and the caliber of talent around you from being a significant factor. Consistently underperforming your RYOE mark is an indication of a below-average running back.

Explosion and Consistency

It feels weird to call David Montgomery a below-average running back. Just writing that is jarring. After all, we’ve spent three years cheering for him and loving how he runs. So maybe there’s something else out there that can highlight what Montgomery is good at.

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The Bears have limited resources to improve their team this offseason, and a lot of attention is going to be focused on using those resources to fix the offense. On the surface, this makes quite a bit of sense; as you can see in the table below, which looks at a variety of all-encompassing stats for each side of the ball, the Bears had an average to below-average defense and one of the worst offenses in the NFL.

However, the Bears would be wise not to ignore the defense, either. For starters, that unit has several key contributors from 2021 who are scheduled to be free agents, including five players who spent the bulk of the season as starters (Akiem Hicks, Bilal Nichols, Alec Ogletree, Artie Burns, Tashaun Gipson). Those players will need to be re-signed or replaced, and none of them have obvious in-house replacements already on the roster.

But Chicago has to be careful not to overspend on defense, because the offense definitely needs investment as well. The table below shows the veteran players currently under contract for 2022 on both offense and defense with a cap hit of at least $3 million. The offense is shown on the left in blue, and the defense on the right in orange. As you can see, it’s quite lopsided (data from Over the Cap).

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The Bears are in the midst of looking for a new general manager and head coach, but what is the roster situation they’ll be inheriting?

I’m glad you asked.

Let’s take a look at who is on the roster, what the salary cap situation is, and what options they have to free up more space.

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Current Depth Chart

Let’s start by looking at who the Bears currently have under contract for 2022. This is based on players currently signed as of January 18.

As you can see, there’s a lot of room for flexibility here. The Bears only have 40 players on the roster, and 11 of them are on futures contracts, which have no guaranteed money and thus are essentially camp tryout players. A standard NFL roster carries 53 players, so there will be extensive opportunity for a new coach and general manager to re-work the roster as they see fit, pretty much immediately. We could easily see half (or more) the week 1 roster in 2022 be players who were not with the Bears in 2021.

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Free Agents

It stands to reason, then that the Bears have a long list of free agents from their 2021 roster, and that is indeed the case. Here is the full list of unrestricted free agents, grouped by position. Those who started at least five games for the Bears in 2021 are indicated with an asterisk. All free agent information is pulled from Over the Cap.

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Today, we look at defense and special teams.

Defensive Line: 8

Key Players: Akiem Hicks, Eddie Goldman, Bilal Nichols, Mario Edwards

Roster Depth: Angelo Blackson, Khyiris Tonga, Mike Pennel, LaCale London, Daniel Archibong

Akiem Hicks is still a stud, Eddie Goldman is back after opting out in 2020, and Bilal Nichols can now man the defensive end spot where he is best. That gives the Bears an excellent starting trio. They’ve also improved their depth, re-signing Edwards and bringing in Blackson at defensive end while adding two competent nose tackles in Tonga and Pennel in case Goldman goes down with injury. This group should be a clear strength for the Bears in 2021.

Edge Rushers: 7

Key Players: Khalil Mack, Robert Quinn, Jeremiah Attaochu

Roster Depth: Trevis Gipson, Charles Snowden, James Vaughters, Ledarius Mack, Austin Calitro

Khalil Mack remains one of the best all-around edge rushers in the NFL, but his pass rushing productivity took a dip from great to good last year. Robert Quinn had a horrible 2020 as he battled through injury. Both players are now over 30; can they rebound? Chicago’s defense is built with the idea that this will be a dominant duo, but the pass rush was surprisingly mediocre in 2020, and they will need to be markedly better in 2021 to mask holes on the back end.

The addition of Jeremiah Attaochu as a 3rd rusher is a real upgrade and provides depth and insurance in case Quinn continues to struggle. The Bears have also spoken highly of toolsy sophomore Trevis Gipson this offseason, but it’s hard to put too much stock into offseason praise until we see it on the field.

One area that is overlooked here comes in pass coverage. Neither Quinn nor Mack (nor Attaochu) can do much there, but the Bears have typically had a versatile OLB who gets a decent number of snaps (Leonard Floyd through 2019, Barkevious Mingo in 2020). Undrafted rookie Charles Snowden fits that mold of player, and I won’t be surprised if he earns a roster spot and potentially a role on defense.

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Camp approaches, which means it’s time for me to grade the roster. Like I did last year, I’ll grade on a 1-10 scale, with 1 being the worst in the NFL, 10 being the best, and 5 being an average NFL unit. Let’s get right down to it.

Quarterback: 3

Key Players: Andy Dalton, Justin Fields

Roster Depth: Nick Foles

Veterans Andy Dalton and Nick Foles are not good. Rookie Justin Fields is Chicago’s best chance at getting good QB play this year, but rookie QBs aren’t usually good either. I mainly grade now based on proven production, so Fields’ draft status doesn’t factor in much here. If I was just basing it on certainty going into the season, this would be a 2, but Fields’ upside prompted me to round up.

Running Back: 7

Key Players: David Montgomery, Tarik Cohen, Damien Williams

Roster Depth: Khalil Herbert, Ryan Nall, Artavis Pierce, CJ Marable

David Montgomery broke out as a sophomore in 2020, but a lack of explosive plays limits how good I think he is. The Bears were forced to rely on Montgomery heavily in 2020, so they spent the offseason improving the group of players around him. They get Tarik Cohen back from a torn ACL that cost him most of the 2020 season, and they added solid depth in both free agency (Damien Williams) and the draft (6th round pick Khalil Herbert). I’d give Montgomery a 6 – an above-average NFL starter – but the quality depth around him bumps this up to a 7.

Wide Receiver: 6

Key Players: Allen Robinson, Darnell Mooney, Anthony Miller, Damiere Byrd, Marquise Goodwin

Roster Depth: Javon Wims, Riley Ridley, Dazz Newsome, Rodney Adams, Thomas Ives, Chris Lacy, Khalil McClain, Jester Weah

Allen Robinson is a stud. Darnell Mooney had a solid rookie season, and is somebody the Bears should feel pretty good about as a WR2. Anthony Miller took a step back in 2020 and seems maxed out as a situational WR3 for passing downs only. Javon Wims and Riley Ridley were awful depth last year, so the Bears brought in Damiere Byrd (who should even push Miller for playing time) and Marquise Goodwin, which should bump those two off the roster. Bears fans seem to love Dazz Newsome, but I’m not overly optimistic about the prospects of an unathletic 6th round pick. Anything he gives the offense will be a pleasant surprise.

This grade really hinges on Mooney, who needs to be the guy at WR2. If he can establish himself as a quality starter this year, the Bears’ WR group will be a clear strength.

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Finally, let’s end with a look at the cornerbacks, who will have some personnel changes from 2020. Gone are veterans Kyle Fuller and Buster Skrine, while Desmond Trufant has been brought in to compete with a host of late round picks from the last few drafts.

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The table below shows 2020 coverage stats for all 2020 Bears and Desmond Trufant, who was in Detroit last year. The * for Vildor and Shelley indicates that I included their playoff stats to increase their sample size, since they only played the last few games of the regular season. The rank compares their yards/target mark to all NFL CBs. The median value is included on the bottom, but you can view the full data here.

A few thoughts:

• Losing Kyle Fuller, who was a cap casualty this offseason, is a massive blow for a secondary that was already full of questions. He was the best player in the secondary by a wide margin last year, and his departure leaves a cornerback group with nothing but questions.
• However, there are some reasons for optimism among the cornerbacks, if you look closely enough. Desmond Trufant was very good in 2018 (6.2 yards/target) before struggling through injuries the last 2 years. He’ll be 31 at the start of the season, but maybe he can buck the odds, stay healthy and regain his prior form.
• At nickelback, losing Skrine isn’t actually a problem, as he was not good last year. Skrine missed the last 5 games of the season (including playoffs) in 2020, and Duke Shelley stepped right in and matched his production.
• Of course, that’s not to say Shelley was good, as he also ranked below average in yards/target. However, if you want to be optimistic, you can point out that Shelley was pretty solid outside of getting torched by Justin Jefferson in one game against Minnesota. In that one game, Shelley gave up 101 yards on 8 targets (11.2 yards/target), but he only allowed 75 yards on 14 targets (5.4 yards/target) in the other 4 games combined. Those other 4 games look good, but you can’t just ignore that he got destroyed by the best WR he faced.

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