The first half of last night’s rush hour game between the Washington Commanders and the Chicago Bears was excruciatingly boring. The snooze event is that Thursday Night Week 5 took place in the first half of Week 6. Three points, seven fouls and ugly play from Bears defender Justin Fields.
The pitch was particularly bad in the first half, and it wasn’t just one particular aspect of his game. On his first drive, Fields was fired twice in his last three plays. The first sack was entirely his fault. He kept the ball for too long. Kirk Herbstreit even took the time to demonstrate how Fields opened the receiver. Darnell Mooney has internal levers on a route and has a corner step to protect him. It’s open in the NFL. Herbstreit stated that apparently Fields “didn’t trust his receivers” enough to make that pitch. However, the rest of the first half was filled with passing attempts with Fields so trusting his receiver, blindly throwing the ball down the field without any thought of the situation.
He made some good throws, as every midfielder does. Launch play-action where Fields stops in his path while rolling towards his weak side to avoid a tackle and then put the ball between two Commanders defenders to find Cole Kmet in 15 yards? Beautiful. Throw to Mooney with eight Minutes left in the second quarter are on a rope! It looks great. However, those plays have very few companies.
All in all, Fields was too quick to pocket, but still found a way to hold the ball for too long (fourhighest in that category this season among qualifying QBs), and refused to look through his readings in short-range passing situations. Fields did a phenomenal job of escaping the pressure after he failed to play the play-action, but when he was forced through, he looked as good as 10.-day-old lamb chops for vegetarian. Whether it was the wrong throw to Ryan Griffin on the second and goal, or Mooney’s overthrow on the third and-short with six With the remaining minutes of the second half, Fields needed to be sharper in the second half if the Bears were to win any points in the future.
And maaaaaan, right?!
While his stats may not suggest that he got any better, a series of drops and poor protection resulted in lower completion rate. However, while watching the game, it was clear that he made some adjustments in the dressing room. He sits in his pocket more, going through his receiver on every drop, and while he certainly still relies on action play on the half-court to push the ball down the court, when he is forced into the The passing situation was clear, he showed poise and confidence was only faltered when his teammates failed to finish.
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While obviously going to commend his touchdown pass to Dante Pettis, dropped into the breadbasket from 40 yards, Fields’ two most decisive second-half games were the first and-10 from Chicago 25 with 7:21 remaining in the fourth and fourth quartersth-and-16 from Washington 48 with 2:28 left in the game.
Before that was a broken play that opened for the Bears’ second lap in the fourth quarter. Left-back Lucas Patrick was unable to stop Jonathan Allen. Allen immediately broke into the Bears’ backyard and while David Montgomery was able to slow him down after a missed tackle, the bag collapsed. Fields needed to improvise immediately, but if Fields was likely to immediately move in the first half, he kept his eyes on the pitch. He keeps the ball in his thrower, which creates a threat that he can still pass. While Fields eventually committed to the run, reaching five yards, the threat of the pass allowed him to shake the first defender beyond the boundary of the script for a solid gain. That’s the kind of perception you’d expect from a veteran QB.
The second round was incomplete and more or less gave way to Washington, until Commanders striker Joey Slye hooked onto the frozen goal. However, the failure to complete was not due to Fields’ fault. Protection from O currents is good, but more importantly, Fields shows situational awareness. Fields in the first half will spend the day waiting for the lines to develop on his right side. It’s a deep route that looks like an internal blur combined with a deep curl, but clearly, I can’t be sure because I don’t have all 22 footage. Round 2 Fields understood that since the Commanders were running a 2-man Cover with a QB agent and the Bears were playing with a single breakout, the midfield area would be open to Ihmir Smith-Marsette. Smith-Marsette even has internal leverage over his defender on release. Even with only a step and a half into the corner, shielding this is a sure bet unless safe left Darrick Forrest shows up, but Forrest has come back too far, Smith-Marsette will have plenty of wide playing field. open to get the first one.
Smith-Marsette dropped the pass. You can tell he’s frustrated with himself. It was a perfect read from Fields, who took the throw-in shortly after Smith-Marsette cut in. Fields diagnosed the defense in a snap and dropped a dot. Unfortunately, nothing came of it.
The Bears are clearly a very running team. However, if Fields can continue to show the mature form he showed in the second half of last night’s game (and most of last week’s game against Minnesota), I wouldn’t be shocked if Chicago starts. rely on him more. Mooney got more involved in offense, scoring twelve goals, double his last season’s high. Fields also set a new high for pass attempts in a game with 27. The Bears are getting that pass the game will go on, and eventually, we’ll be able to see if Fields is the franchisee the Bears hoped he could be.
