Matt Nagy reiterated in a recent interview that his intention is for Andy Dalton, not Justin Fields, to be Chicago’s starting quarterback in Week 1. Dalton definitely will begin training camp as their starter, and they’ll go from there.
“Andy is our starter,” said Nagy in a sit down with Cris Collinsworth. “Again, I can't predict anything. You know how it goes, there's so many things that can happen between today and that Week 1 (game). But Andy is our starter and Justin is our No. 2, and we're going to stick to this plan.”
Nagy was an assistant in Kansas City when Patrick Mahomes was brought along slowly, sitting behind Alex Smith for a year, and has indicated that kind of approach is appealing for him. And when the Bears drafted Mitchell Trubisky No. 2 overall in 2017 (Nagy’s first season) he spent the first month of that season as a backup. Fields would need to be very impressive in August, it seems, to move into the No. 1 spot in August.
There is also the issue of whether Fields can develop into a top-level quarterback. He had issues at Ohio State with getting caught holding the ball too long – not recognizing where pressure was coming from or making quick enough decisions. I posted a blurb a month ago showing that Fields was sacked more frequently than any other quarterback taken in the first round in the last 10 years.
At least some NFL teams had concerns about Fields (otherwise he wouldn’t have lasted until the 11th pick of the draft). The Broncos, most notably, passed on him. Washington declined to trade up for him. Carolina and Detroit are plugging in second-chance quarterbacks and declined to pick him. The Patriots didn’t trade up for him.
At the same time, some teams might have had Fields higher than Zach Wilson and Trey Lance on their board. The Vikings reportedly tried to trade up for him.
For me, I’m taking a wait-and-see attitude. It’s worrying, in my opinion, that he’s in Chicago, since this group hasn’t had much success with quarterbacks, committing big resources to Nick Foles, Trubisky and Mike Glennon and missing on all of them. How the blame should be divided between players, coaches and scouts can be debated.
We know that a good number of first-round quarterbacks fail. Trubisky, for example, and also Dwayne Haskins, who preceded Fields at Ohio State. Completely different players, of course, but if you back up the clock and look at those guys before they took their first NFL snap, they look pretty comparable to Fields as prospects. Especially Trubisky, who was a No. 2 overall pick.
If we look at the last 14 college games, they each completed 68-70 percent of their passes. Haskins finished with 50 TDs versus only 8 interceptions. Fields had a 39-8 ratio in his final 14 starts for the Buckeyes. Trubisky wasn’t as prodigious (30 TDs, 6 interceptions) but it’s similar production when you factor in that he was playing at North Carolina.
Haskins is little more than a punchline nowadays, but he had 5 games with 400-plus passing yards at Ohio State (in his last 14 starts); Fields had none. Fields, meanwhile, finished with 200 or fewer passing yards in 5 games (Haskins had none).
Fields is more athletic than Trubisky and a lot more athletic than Haskins – might be a top-5 running quarterback. He ran for 548 yards and 6 TDs in those last 14 starts at Ohio State (39 yards per game). He also completed more downfield balls than either of those games, averaging a yard more per completion.
But until we see Fields in uniform playing effectively, best to consider him to be a prospect-type of guy rather than a sure thing.
| LAST 14 COLLEGE STARTS | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Player | Cmp | Att | Pct | YPC | Yards | TD | Int |
| Haskins | 373 | 533 | 70% | 13.0 | 4,831 | 50 | 8 |
| Fields | 268 | 393 | 68% | 13.9 | 3,714 | 39 | 8 |
| Trubisky | 304 | 447 | 68% | 12.3 | 3,748 | 30 | 6 |
—Ian Allan