Chicago Bears

There was a thread like this a couple weeks ago and I tried to give a detailed breakdown in that thread. Here's what I had written:

1. Routes beyond 10 yards that don't resolve quick enough. If you look at simple routes like a curl route, as an example, Getsy often has receives going 20+ yards downfield before curling. Similarly if he draws up a hook, it resolves in a similarly slow fashion. That means the average time for a receiver to be ready to catch the ball increases, and Fields has to continue to hold the ball before throwing it or has to run it out.

2. Routes that do not innovate. Most of the routes Getsy draws up are very vanilla. It's readily apparent to most defenders what is going on, so coverage becomes trivial. A stud like DJ can still make something out of these routes, as he can physically beat the defender, but most receivers cannot. Until we start drawing up plays that resolve in unusual ways to create better windows, and have them resolve quicker, it becomes harder for a QB to excel.

3. Too many plays behind the LoS. We've all seen the million "WHY ARE WE RUNNING ANOTHER SCREEN" comments. This is a real problem when you have an athletic QB like Fields. His strength comes in being able to use his legs if the routes downfield don't open up. If we have all of our eligible receives behind the LoS to receive and block, the D can bring a lot of pressure and ensure Fields is ineffective. These types of plays work well for a prototypical pocket passer like Bagent, but do not work in large quantities for a mobile QB like Fields.

4. Time to throw. This one is a mixed bag. Fields does take too long on his reads at times. However, in a lot of situations people in this sub attribute to him just not making reads quick enough, the routes simply aren't resolved so the receiver is not ready to receive the ball. Anticipating the receiver in some of those situations could help, so the ball is there as they turn, but in a fair amount of these scenarios Getsy has not drawn up the play for the receiver to be ready. That means Fields is holding the ball longer than needed to wait for the downfield shot, which is one of his strengths. Again, Getsy scheming for more of a prototypical game manager/pocket passer style is hurting the ability of Fields to really strike downfield consistently.

5. Getsy comes from a tree that has repeatedly shown it was reliant on the skill of a HoF QB and not the skill of the coaches. This one should be obvious, but if you look at people from this tree like Hackett and Getsy, neither of them are translating well to coaching other teams. Hackett took Russell Wilson, who just came from a team where he routinely dominated the opposition, and made him look like he shouldn't be starting. Getsy took one of the most athletic QB prospects in the last decade and has built a system that just does not work for him. A lot of people here are quick to dismiss coaching, but we're seeing objective examples of this coaching tree failing over and over again on other teams. It is becoming crystal clear to people that Rodgers hid the ineffectiveness of his coaches since he was already a developed and polished QB by the time they came in to coach him. Now they are being exposed when trying to replicate that system elsewhere since they did not actually develop their QBs. It is also well known that Rodgers would call his own plays from the huddle often, negating the OC's scheme. This is another factor that masked the ineffectiveness of offensive coaches from this tree.

There's a lot more to it, but in effect we have a fundamental flaw where our OC wants to design plays for a pocket passer. Our QB is not a pocket passer, and shows his greatest strengths when he can effectively use his legs and create defensive openings for downfield strikes. If we were to swap coaches to someone who can design plays more around Fields strengths, we would see a greater production on offense more consistently. In addition, we have to acknowledge Fields still has areas to develop and a coach with more knowledge of developing players like Fields could help expedite that process.

TL/DR: our OC is underqualified and a mismatch to the type of QB we have. As a result, we're seeing development that is slower than it should be. Bringing in talent that has proven it can develop this type of QB would be a game changer