NFL Analysis
2/17/24
8 min read
Which Team Should Acquire Justin Fields If The Bears Trade Him?
The time is near for a new quarterback in Chicago. With the first overall pick in hand and two elite quarterback prospects on the board in Caleb Williams and Drake Maye, it's hard to imagine the Chicago Bears taking any other path. Justin Fields' days nominally being the Bears' starting quarterback are numbered.
While the Bears are used to shuttling potential franchise quarterbacks in and out of the lineup, this time feels different.
>> READ MORE: See Who Bears Take In Latest Mock Draft
When Chicago moved on from Rex Grossman and Kyle Orton, it was in search of arm talent in the form of Jay Cutler. Cutler eventually proved too frustrating, no matter how much they tried to toil with his game.
The Bears drafted Mitchell Trubisky shortly after ridding themselves of Cutler. Trubisky looked halfway decent in his second season but only spiraled out of control from there. The overall frustration and downward trajectory with both quarterbacks were apparent and justified the team moving on.
That's not the boat Fields is in. Fields was failed by the organization time and time again but still found ways to get better. His 2023 season was as good as he's ever looked. The Bears just happen to have the Carolina Panthers' pick at first overall and a chance to reset their quarterback contract structure.
With that in mind, it's worth rehashing how Fields and the Bears arrived at this awkward stage.
Sabotaging Fields
Fields was thrown to the wolves when the team drafted him in 2021. Matt Nagy was still clinging to the head coaching job by a thread, but it was a lame-duck season.
Although Nagy's offense has merit in a vacuum, it also made no sense for Fields. Nagy is an Andy Reid disciple who wants to spread the ball out and invest in the RPO game. None of that made sense for Fields, a cannon-armed passer who is a bit slow on the draw.
The Bears started over in 2022, hiring Colts defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus to be the head coach, with Packers quarterback coach Luke Getsy coming over to run the offense.
Theoretically, Getsy's offense made more sense for Fields. There would be more reliance on the run game — quarterback included (at times) — and the passing game would be more about shot plays and rollouts than true dropback passing from the gun.
The roster had nobody, though. The offensive line was still a nightmare, and the receiving corps was led by Darnell Mooney, a WR3 by any reasonable standard, and TE Cole Kmet, who had not yet broken out as a reliable player.
As a result, the offense never became what it was supposed to be under Getsy, partly because the team was never in a position on the scoreboard to play the slow game they wanted.
Justin Fields was in playmaker mode on Sunday 🕹️ pic.twitter.com/wjgDG7TWTW
— NFL (@NFL) January 2, 2024
Fields Finally Improved
In 2023, Fields was finally given a real chance.
For one, the Bears fixed the offensive line. Second-year LT Braxton Jones took a step forward, and rookie RT Darnell Wright also played well. The interior slightly improved as well, especially when Teven Jenkins was healthy.
Trading for DJ Moore shifted the makeup of the receiving corps, too. Moore served as a true No.1 for Fields, allowing the others to fall into more reasonable roles for their skill sets.
Kmet also stepped up his game in his second year in Getsy's offense. Far be it from The Greatest Show on Turf, but it was a functional offense.
Fields responded and had the best season of his young career. On throws beyond the line of scrimmage, effectively taking out screens and some checkdowns, Fields was miles better than he'd ever been before.
Fields' 50.4 percent success rate and 0.29 EPA per dropback on throws beyond the line of scrimmage were the best marks of his career by a wide margin, according to TruMedia.
That improvement was tangible on film, too. Fields looked like a different player.
The first two years of Fields' career were plagued by the sports' latest internal clock, robotic movement within the pocket and a reluctance to throw over the middle of the field.
Some of that remains. Fields still takes some ugly sacks, and he isn't a good anticipatory thrower over the middle of the field.
He did improve to some degree in all of those areas, though.
Fields' improvement was most noticeable in his pocket movement. After two and a half years of rigid movement, Fields suddenly blossomed into a cooler, more creative passer from the pocket in the season’s back half.
He was more willing to take hits and inventive with finding throwing platforms. Fields no longer looked like someone who needed a perfectly clean throwing platform. He was learning to create them on his own.
For the first time in his career, Fields was playing loose and free.
Unfortunately, his slow and steady progression was not enough. Fields established himself as more than a lost cause but less than a certainty. That doesn't serve anybody. It's quarterback limbo.
Who Will Take a Shot on Fields?
That sounds like terrible news for Fields, but the reality is that a handful of teams every year get stuck in quarterback limbo.
There are 32 starting quarterback jobs but not 32 clear answers at quarterback. Some teams must get by with lesser means or roll the dice on another team's past failure. Fields falls into the latter category and should have plenty of suitors.
Pittsburgh Steelers
Perhaps the most obvious landing spot is with the Pittsburgh Steelers. There's no shot that Kenny Pickett will be the Steelers' starting quarterback again. The world in which any quarterback gets benched in favor of Mason Rudolph for a playoff game is not a world where that player is starting any more games for that team.
The Steelers make a lot of sense for Fields, even beyond the open starting job. The Steelers are a beacon of organizational stability.
Sure, we can hound them for not winning anything meaningful in years, but Mike Tomlin and the Steelers know how to be competitive and keep their act together. Fields could use that stability.
Pittsburgh's offensive environment also makes sense for Fields. The Steelers hired former Atlanta Falcons head coach Arthur Smith to run the offense. Poke fun as we might, Smith is still a good offensive play-caller, and his run-run-boot offensive formula is a perfect fit for Fields.
The Steelers also have some ball-winners in the offense, which fits Fields' style. George Pickens and Pat Friermuth have the wide-radius and contested-catch skills that Fields can make great use of.
If not Pittsburgh, both the New England Patriots and Atlanta Falcons could make sense. Like the Steelers, the Patriots and Falcons want to move on at quarterback but will be out of range to draft either Williams or Maye with the first two picks.
New England Patriots
The Patriots could still have their pick of the rest of the quarterback class. Jayden Daniels and J.J. McCarthy will go in the top half of the first round, either to the Patriots or elsewhere.
Neither of them screams clear franchise quarterback the way Williams and Maye do, which could lead the Patriots to take an offensive building block instead, like WR Marvin Harrison Jr.
>>READ: Latest Draft Big Board
Fields is the perfect alternative. Imperfect as he is, Fields is at least a viable starting quarterback. His mobility and deep ball ability alone bring a level of explosiveness that this Patriots offense hasn't seen in years.
Just think about the whiplash of going from a pair of immobile popguns in Mac Jones and Bailey Zappe to Fields, one of the most talented players at the position. That's the kind of spark that can turn things around.
Atlanta Falcons
The argument for the Falcons isn't all that different. Even further down the draft board at eighth overall, it's unlikely the Falcons get the quarterback prospect they want without trading up. It makes more sense to swing on Fields than to settle for whichever quarterback is left at their pick.
The environment is also ripe for Fields to succeed. Though slightly underwhelming last year, the offensive line has pieces, and the skill positions are as loaded as anywhere else in the league. Bijan Robinson, Drake London, and Kyle Pitts are an ungodly collection of raw talent on their own, never mind the potential addition of a highly athletic quarterback with a booming arm.
"Atlanta would be tough ... I think they got a lot of playmakers on the team.
Justin Fields on St. Brown Bros. Podcast
"Throw another super athlete at the wall and see if it sticks" isn't a novel strategy, but again, I don't know how many other options the Falcons have. Maybe Fields' rushing ability and explosive arm are enough raw talent to tip the scale in Atlanta's favor.
Fields absolutely deserves another shot to be a starting quarterback, wherever that turns out to be. Few quarterbacks are as talented, and he's clearly shown growth during the past three seasons.
Just because that growth was a little too slow to dissuade the Bears from starting over with another young, uber-talented prospect doesn't preclude Fields from fully figuring things out down the line.
