It obviously starts in the trenches, but a great QB gets it done, even with inferior talent and scheme.
Great tidbit IMHO from Briggs' article in the Trib today.
8. Longtime NFL executive Michael Lombardi isn’t holding back when it comes to Justin Fields.
Lombardi was one of the first analysts to turn on former Bears quarterback Mitch Trubisky. This may be a major turnoff to some Bears fans and readers, but Lombardi isn’t saying anything different about Fields from what talent evaluators with other teams have said for quite some time. They just haven’t seen Fields perform as a passer.
Lombardi spent the first third of his podcast, “The GM Shuffle,” last week describing in great length the issues Fields and the offense have in the aftermath of the quarterback’s comments Wednesday, which included a reference to “coaching” when explaining why he thought he has been thinking too much. Lombardi went back and forth with co-host Femi Abefefe, who has been a supporter of Fields. This is as raw as it gets to criticism of the quarterback.
Bears quarterback Justin Fields with offensive coordinator Luke Getsy during a game against the Packers on Sept. 10, 2023, at Soldier Field. (Nam Y. Huh/AP)
“I don’t understand how Justin Fields became this guy everyone wants to run and defend,” Lombardi said on the podcast. “Does anybody watch the tape? Here is the question I want to ask you. You get your headset on. You get your play sheet. You call plays for this guy. Because if you and I sat down and watched tape, and if we watched that Bears game against Tampa and we watched it closely and I showed you exactly Luke Getsy called in the game and what (Fields) didn’t throw, and what he didn’t do, you would say, ‘Well, it’s hard to call plays for this guy.’
“That’s why (Getsy) calls so many screens. Because Getsy knows at least he can complete a screen. Can we stop the nonsense, please? He’s throwing the coaches under the bus because he knows he’s got a sympathetic audience in Twitter. Now, he peeled it back. But who cares? He’s 5-22. He misses open receivers. He doesn’t throw to receivers. He leads the league in negative plays. At some point, when does somebody say, ‘It’s the player’? What scheme are you going to run? What plays are you going to call for this guy? What plays are you calling? If you’re Ryan Poles and you’re sitting up there in the press box and you want to blame Luke Getsy, and you can blame him, but the next guy coming in will get fired too.
“Here’s what I want to know: When did he play loose? When did he play his game over the last 27 starts? Tell me what tape I should go watch of him playing himself that doesn’t involve running around. I will be happy to watch it. When you’re complaining about the play calling, you’re complaining about the pass plays. Got a guy running wide open down the seam, he just holds the ball and takes a sack. Got a guy wide open in the flat, he throws it 5 yards in the dirt. They call all sticks and he throws it into the middle. They’re calling stuff to get completions. He’s looking at his play sheet saying, ‘What am I gonna call?’ You can’t defend this guy.”
Lombardi went on to explain Fields isn’t mastering basic passing concepts with any consistency and it is hamstringing the entire operation.
“Even when he’s given high-low reads, he doesn’t throw it,” Lombardi said. “He doesn’t trust his accuracy. His accuracy is a disaster. He can’t control the football and if you watch his motion at Ohio State, I said this when he came out. If Tom Brady were to evaluate all of the quarterbacks in that draft, Fields would have been the least he liked because his motion is all over the place. It isn’t tight enough. He might hit one. He’s gonna miss two. Quarterbacks have to be accurate and accuracy is not defined by completions. Accuracy is defined by location of the football based on the route and he doesn’t trust his accuracy. So he’s scared to throw the ball sometimes. He just doesn’t make any plays. He gets sacked all the time. This is not a fender bender that he’s getting sacked so much. It’s been happening forever. It’s been a pattern of reckless sacks forever. It’s not like he’s completed 80% of his passes and now he’s down to 55. This is pretty much what we saw last year.
“So, now all of a sudden it’s Getsy’s fault? I urge everybody, all of these guys that get on Twitter and describe the plays and go over it, you call plays for him. You get a headset on. You game plan against Todd Bowles and his defense and you start calling plays and you tell me what you’re going to get. Once you take away clear dig, indigo, that’s the first play of the game, he completed it and he completed it later to DJ Moore. Moore is frustrated. He’s wide open on a couple of plays and he can’t even get him the ball. Why do we defend Fields? Why is everyone in a rush to defend Fields? He’s had (28) games as a starter. He’s yet to produce quality quarterback play as a thrower.”
There's more to it but this is the nuts and bolts where Fields is concerned.
Someone should take a clip of this audio and paste it over the video of Uncle Rico throwing footballs.
Fuck man, it's easy to understand tho, when yer talking a lifetime of inadequacy. Like a literal lifetime.
