The Bears have settled on Matt Eberflus as their next head coach, but the more notable decision is still to come. They’ve got to pick an offensive coordinator to work with Justin Fields.
Fields is the franchise right now. If they can develop him properly, it could help propel them to the top of the NFC North for most of the next decade. Aaron Rodgers might have played his last down in Green Bay. If that’s the case, that division starts to look a lot more open. Especially if Fields ends up being better than Jordan Love.
Eberflus is a defensive coach. He shouldn’t have much of a role in working with Fields. So the OC hire is particularly noteworthy; he’ll be making most of the key decisions on that side of the ball.
The Bears shouldn’t have any problem finding interested candidates. It’s a good gig, with a promising quarterback in place and a coach who’s looking for cede authority on that side of the ball.
Fields didn’t crush it as a rookie, but he’s got considerable potential. He’s big (6-3, 228), and with excellent mobility. There are times when he’s running around that he looks like another Josh Allen or Cam Newton. And Fields looks like a much better passer on deep throws than Newton ever was.
The Bears for now seem to be trying to duplicate the Buffalo plan. In Eberflus, they’ve got a defensive coach who potentially could be similar to Sean McDermott. Now they need to land a Brian Daboll type coordinator who can turn Fields into another Josh Allen.
If we look at the rookie numbers for Allen and Fields, they’ve been pretty similar so far. Both averaged about 181 passing yards as starters in their first year. If you look at completion percentage and passer rating, Fields was a little better than Allen. Allen did a lot more as a runner, and with fewer sacks, interceptions and fumbles.
The 21 rookie starts by these quarterbacks are listed below. Using standard fantasy scoring, Allen had 8 of the top 12 games (with Fields then accounting for two thirds of the bottom-9 games. But not wildly different players as rookie.
In my eyes, Fields is one of the intriguing question marks at quarterback heading into the next few seasons. I’ve seen enough that I don’t think he’s another Mitchell Trubisky. Mac Jones had a much better rookie season, but Fields (with that mobility) has the potential to perhaps develop into a much better quarterback – he’s got a lot more upside.
I will be interested to see who’s put in charge of the Fields project.
| JOSH ALLEN vs. JUSTIN FIELDS, ROOKIE SEASONS | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Player | Opp | Result | Cmp | Att | Yds | TD | Int | Rushing | F Pts |
| Allen | Mia. | W 42-17 | 17 | 26 | 224 | 3 | 1 | 9-95-2 | 44.7 |
| Allen | at Mia. | L 17-21 | 18 | 33 | 231 | 2 | 2 | 9-135-0 | 33.1 |
| Allen | at Min. | W 27-6 | 15 | 22 | 196 | 1 | 0 | 10-39-2 | 29.7 |
| Fields | S.F. | L 22-33 | 19 | 27 | 175 | 1 | 1 | 10-103-1 | 29.1 |
| Allen | Jac. | W 24-21 | 8 | 19 | 160 | 1 | 0 | 13-99-1 | 27.9 |
| Fields | at G.B. | L 30-45 | 18 | 33 | 224 | 2 | 2 | 9-74-0 | 26.6 |
| Allen | NYJ | L 23-27 | 18 | 36 | 206 | 0 | 2 | 9-101-1 | 26.4 |
| Fields | at Pitt. | L 27-29 | 17 | 29 | 291 | 1 | 1 | 8-45-0 | 23.1 |
| Allen | Det. | W 14-13 | 13 | 26 | 204 | 1 | 0 | 9-16-1 | 21.8 |
| Fields | Min. | L 9-17 | 26 | 39 | 285 | 1 | 0 | 7-35-0 | 21.8 |
| Allen | LAC | L 20-31 | 18 | 33 | 245 | 1 | 2 | 8-32-0 | 19.5 |
| Allen | at N.E. | L 12-24 | 20 | 41 | 217 | 1 | 2 | 5-30-0 | 17.9 |
| Fields | G.B. | L 14-24 | 16 | 27 | 174 | 1 | 1 | 6-43-0 | 17.0 |
| Fields | at T.B. | L 3-38 | 22 | 32 | 184 | 0 | 3 | 8-38-0 | 13.0 |
| Allen | Ten. | W 13-12 | 10 | 19 | 82 | 0 | 1 | 4-19-1 | 12.0 |
| Fields | Det. | W 24-14 | 11 | 17 | 209 | 0 | 1 | 3-9-0 | 11.4 |
| Fields | at L.V. | W 20-9 | 12 | 20 | 111 | 1 | 0 | 3-4-0 | 10.0 |
| Allen | at G.B. | L 0-22 | 16 | 33 | 151 | 0 | 2 | 5-19-0 | 9.5 |
| Fields | Bal. | L 13-16 | 4 | 11 | 79 | 0 | 0 | 4-23-0 | 6.3 |
| Allen | at Hou. | L 13-20 | 10 | 17 | 84 | 0 | 0 | 4-20-0 | 6.2 |
| Fields | at Cle. | L 6-26 | 6 | 20 | 68 | 0 | 0 | 3-12-0 | 4.6 |
—Ian Allan