Below is an honest review of Justin Fields’ game against the Broncos:
Fields looked like a dynamo early, doing nearly everything Bears fans have begged him to all year — he hit throws over the middle, he hit long balls down the sideline, and he did it all on-time & within the structure of the offense. Banner day.
But why did it happen on Sunday? In my opinion, Fields’ success was largely due to a bizarre Broncos’ first half gameplan — for some reason, despite knowing Fields struggles against zone coverage, Vance Joseph called man coverage with a ridiculous 10-yard cushion all the way through halftime.
Knowing this, Fields & Getsy dialed up every WR pick play & isolation play they had in the playbook. Everything worked, and Fields never needed to look past Read #2 — usually, read #1 was open, but if not #2 absolutely was. Bootlegs worked great too because the cross-field chaos created natural picks & generated WRs in space with a linebackers in pursuit.
All of this meant that while Fields had to make plenty of physically demanding throws (like the strike to Moore over the middle rolling out or the corner TD throw), more often than not Fields knew where he was throwing the ball before each play started. He could laser-lock on the target he wanted, and the Broncos defense would reward him for it.
Oh yes, that'll do nicely pic.twitter.com/esZ9PCOeMX
— Robert Schmitz (@robertkschmitz) October 3, 2023
Fields finished the half with phenomenal statistics that attested to his great day. 3 strong drives, 3 TDs, and only 1 incompletion — the Hail Mary Chicago attempted at the end of the half.
But then, beginning in the first drive of the 2nd half, Vance Joseph started calling more and more spot-drop zones & Fields started checking the ball down. The deeper shots within the offense disappeared while Herbert & Kmet got peppered with backfield targets — some targets picked up yards, some didn’t. Slowly, the Broncos got more stops.
