Why Fields will improve

[adam]

Fields' stats really got pounded by his rookie year with Nagy. That has skewed a lot of his career numbers and brought him down to Blaine Gabbert levels, when he should not even be used in the same sentence as Gabbert. 

There are several comps for Fields, but some easy ones are when Year 3 QBs get their true WR1s. In these cases, you can see the meteoric jump in stats. To make it easy, I just used QBR, which uses a collection of the normal stats to come up with one number. As you can see below, Josh Allen was a league average QB before Diggs arrived, Hurts was slightly above average before he got Brown, and Tua was slightly above league average before Hill came to town. Looking at their seasons, Fields with Nagy was only slightly worse than Hurts his rookie year, yet Fields was the best 2nd year QB out of the 4. So it seems like a logical guess that Fields will improve no worse than the lowest improvement from Year 2 to 3 (Hurts' at +13.7), which would be Fields at a 70 QBR (which would be a top 5 QB). 

QBR
Allen 49.8 > 49.4 > 76.6 (+26.2)
Hurts 33.8 > 54.6 > 68.3 (+13.7)
Tua 44.8 > 55.7 > 70.6 (+14.9)
Fields 31.4 > 56.3 > ??? 

The narrative for Fields is really solely based on cumulative numbers that include his year with Nagy, running for his life. Just by removing the Cleveland game where it seemed like Nagy was purposely sabotaging Fields, his average numbers go up across the board. He was sacked 36 times in 2021, and 25% of those came in the Cleveland game where he completed only 6 passes. 9 sacks, 6 completions! Almost impossible. His Comp% goes from 58.9% to 61.2% without that game.

If you start his season with the Detroit game the following week, he averaged 192 passing yards a game the rest of the season (with a BAL game where he had 79 passing yards). 

[killakrzydav]

Because it’s really hard to be that bad as a thrower again.

[adam]

Welp, it looks like fools gold.

Unless Fields magically turns this around in TB next weekend, he is not it. No QB has went this deep into his career this bad, and turned it around. Most QBs had already been replaced by someone else. Fields is setting records in futility every week now.

In his first game of his 3rd season, Josh Allen threw for 312 yards, 2 TDs, and had 57 yards rushing and another TD. In his 2nd game, he threw for 415 and 4 TDs. 7 TDs in 2 games and over 700 passing yards. Allen then followed up those 2 games with 311 yards passing, 4 TDs, 1 INT, and another rushing TD.  1000+ yards passing, 10 passing TDs, 1 INT, and 2 rushing TDs in 3 games.

In his first game of his 3rd season, Jalen Hurts threw for 243 yards, and had 90 yards rushing and a TD. In his 2nd game, he threw for 333 yds, 1 TD, 1 INT, ran for 57 and had 2 rushing TDs.  4 TDs and almost 600 yards passing in two games. He then threw for 340 with 3 TDs and 0 INTs in game 3. 900+ yards passing, 4 passing TDs, 1 INT, and 3 rushing TDs in 3 games.

 

Pretty crazy to think that this is where we are at. These are the QBs that Fields comps to thru 26 starts:

1.  Blaine Gabbert - 27 starts
2. JaMarcus Russell - 25 starts
3. Vince Young - 33 games

The Gabbert one is scary. As a passer, Fields is Gabbert to this point in his career.

Gabbert 4357 yds, 22 TD, 24 INT. 5-22 Record in 27 starts. 155.6 yds/g. 
Fields 4328 yds, 25 TD, 22 INT. 5-21 Record in 26 starts. 154.6 yds/g. 

[adam]

This is a prime example of Fields holding onto the ball:

 

[adam]

If you stop the video clip right when Herbert cross the right hash (going left to right), Fields should be throwing the ball the Mooney who is coming in from right to left behind the LB who has to follow Herbert. Fields holds the ball for 1.2 seconds AFTER that occurs. He looks lost really.

[Stinger226]

By his tape, the ball needs to be out 2 to 2.5 . Im not sure why he waited ? Mooney was open and at 2.0 he could have hit Herbert? Was the scheme a problem when Herbert blocked his vision to throw to Mooney for a split second ?

[OmahaBear]

At this point I ready to throw in Bagent, LOL.  

[AZ54]

23 hours ago, adam said:

If you stop the video clip right when Herbert cross the right hash (going left to right), Fields should be throwing the ball the Mooney who is coming in from right to left behind the LB who has to follow Herbert. Fields holds the ball for 1.2 seconds AFTER that occurs. He looks lost really.

For sure on that play he's lost.  Not good at all.   

[adam]

32 minutes ago, AZ54 said:

For sure on that play he's lost.  Not good at all.   

There are a lot more. He is becoming David Carr.

On this one he has two places to put the ball, one early and one late, and doesn't take either.

https://x.com/AdamHoge/status/1701582714153943518?s=20

 

[AZ54]

58 minutes ago, adam said:

There are a lot more. He is becoming David Carr.

On this one he has two places to put the ball, one early and one late, and doesn't take either.

https://x.com/AdamHoge/status/1701582714153943518?s=20

 

Yes he is.  Gotta right that ship now...or never.    

[Stinger226]

I think the coaches are scheming like they don't trust him ( or maybe the OL) and not attack down field.. 

[Mongo3451]

13 minutes ago, Stinger226 said:

I think the coaches are scheming like they don't trust him ( or maybe the OL) and not attack down field.. 

Gotta throw downfield at least 4 times a game.  I don't care if they tell him to rip it no matter what.  It has to happen.  1, 2, 3 rip!  Sometimes it as simple as, "Mooney is going to do a double move.  Hit him at X".