(670 The Score) The Athletic Football Show host Robert Mays admits that he doesn’t harbor a strong belief yet on whether Bears quarterback Justin Fields is “the guy.”
What he does believe is important to note is that if Fields is to grow into an above-average or better passer, there’s a crucial element he has to improve upon – avoiding sacks. In Mays’ mind, fans and the Bears themselves should “temper your expectations” of Fields as a passer if he can’t shake his habit for taking so many sacks.
In 2022, Fields was sacked a league-high 55 times and took sacks on 14.7% of his dropbacks, a startling figure and one that’s primarily on him – not his offensive line – to improve upon, Mays said.
“What he is as a passer and how ineffective he was in dropback situations over the past couple of years, it’s not overstating it to say this would almost be an unprecedented jump in the modern era for him to go from where he was throwing the football – the dropbacks in general, the sacks he took – to an above-average passer,” Mays said on the Parkins & Spiegel Show on Wednesday afternoon. “This isn’t Jalen Hurts. It’s not Josh Allen. The numbers those guys had in the year before their big jump, they weren’t great but they weren’t terrible. So I really do think it’s important to kind of temper your expectations and understand the context of just far has he to go from where he was to being a star-level quarterback when it comes to the dropback element of the game.”
Fields, 24, threw for 2,242 yards, 17 touchdowns and 11 interceptions in 15 games in 2022. He also rushed for 1,143 yards, the second-highest single-season figure for a quarterback in NFL history.
Mays has no doubt about Fields’ ability to make big plays and he does believe Fields has the potential to be a great thrower of the football, but Mays doesn't think he can become a good passing quarterback until he cuts down on the sacks. Fields had an 85.2 passer rating in 2022, which ranked 31st in the NFL. He had a 54.0 QBR, which ranked 17th.
“The value lost in the sacks that he took is astronomical,” Mays said. “Passer rating does not take that into account. Passer rating is a number that when the ball leaves your hand, that’s how it’s calculated. Sacks are an unbelievably important part of playing quarterback in the NFL. He had a 14% sack rate last year. It is so much higher than any other quarterback in the league that it almost feels like a fake number. And quarterbacks often responsible for their sack rates. They travel with quarterbacks when they change teams, when the offensive line changes. Guys that take sacks tend to take sacks. And if that element of who he is doesn’t change, then it’s going to be really hard for him to become an above-average passer no matter what he does as a thrower.”
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