So, I don’t have a horse in the race. Eberflus and the rest of the staff have to go, and his comments after the game were not great. Fields is a guy the team can compete with and I don’t think the team needs to draft a QB. He’s on thin ice, but he’s not “awful” yet.

With that being said, DJ Moore, one of the best receivers in the game and arguably the best YAC receiver in the league, was open. When I say open, I don’t mean NFL “open,” I mean that this man had 5 yards of space in every direction “open.”

I submit the following video linked here at the timestamp for the play itself.

I also would like to provide a few screenshots. Here is the first, where Fields still has the ball. In this screen grab, we see he isn’t even looking DJ’s way, even though DJ is literally just a small shift of vision away from the route Fields was focusing on.

This second screenshot shows Fields as he released the ball. As we can see, DJ appears to be pretty open, but the decision to unleash the dragon had already been made. There is no way in hell that Fields actually went through his progression. He never looked at DJ.

Finally, I present this screenshot, which shows just how open DJ actually was. This is the damning shot, in my opinion. This is after the throw, while the camera is panning to the deep receiver, hence the blurred image. This shows DJ with 5 yards of space between him and the only defender who could make a play.

All Fields had to do was hit DJ in stride at the “3” in 30, which was about 15 yards (based on where Fields dropped to) in distance. That 3 is 13-14 yards from the sideline, too, so there was tons of running room for DJ to gain the 5 yards he’d need to secure the 1st down.

Fields overthrew Scott. People keep clamoring about how it was a “perfect” ball. It wasn’t. He overthrew it. He also threw it into double coverage of sorts. Scott beat his primary defender, but the safety absolutely was right there. I don’t know what anyone wants or expects Scott to be able to do here. There is maybe the slightest of stutter steps, potentially, but I see a guy extending himself as much as he can to make the play, but coming up short because the ball was thrown too far. And really, how often do receivers make the catch when outstretched as far as they can be? We just saw a receiver for KC drop a similar ball that was better thrown.

The Bears needed a first down. I’m not opposed to going deep, but when seeing just how open DJ Moore actually was, Fields really dropped the ball in extending the drive and allowing the team to get a win. The defense in the 4th didn’t do any favors by any means, and I don’t blame Fields for the loss, but I do blame him for not getting us the win with a pass to the wide open #1 receiver. He didn’t even look at DJ as an option, which is appalling, quite honestly. I don’t want to crucify Fields here, but I guarantee you that he’s going to see this in the film room this week (if not already today) and come to the same conclusion.

  • pleasedontbingmeBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    This isn’t how it works. You don’t look at your second read when your first read is open.

    The average fan equates not throwing to someone that is open to having not gone through your progressions.

    I also think it’s funny how the main criticism most have of Fields is “he holds on to the ball” or “Just throw it Justin!” And when he does exactly that it is “well maybe he should have held it because a guy was a little more open, he’s not going through his progressions!” It’s like they don’t realize how hypocritical it sounds when in reality he made the right throw and read, it just didn’t work out.