CHICAGO — Trey Lance and Justin Fields were each taken in the first round of the 2021 NFL draft, but how the San Francisco 49ers and Chicago Bears have handled their rookie quarterbacks is an interesting study in differing approaches — as is the New England Patriots’ handling of Mac Jones.
Fields, Jones, Trevor Lawrence (Jacksonville Jaguars) and Zach Wilson (New York Jets) prior to his injury all have been thrust into starting roles.
But the 49ers come to Soldier Field with Jimmy Garoppolo as the starter and Lance, drafted No. 3, serving as the backup. The Niners are scuffling at 2-4, having lost four straight, and the fan base is clamoring for Lance similarly to how Bears fans were demanding Fields over Andy Dalton at the start of the season.
Every decision is nuanced, and Lance has less college experience than Fields — and at a lower level as the North Dakota State starter for one full season in 2019 as a redshirt freshman. Lance started once this season, a 17-10 road loss to the Arizona Cardinals in Week 5 when Garoppolo was injured. He struggled, competing 15 of 29 passes for 192 yards and an interception. Lance was quick to escape the pocket and he looked like a rookie in need of seasoning.
What’s interesting about this meeting is both teams passed on Jones, who went to the Patriots at No. 15. The former Alabama star has outperformed all other rookie quarterbacks this season and is ninth in the league with 1,179 passing yards, completing 70.4% of his throws with nine touchdowns and six interceptions for a 92.8 passer rating.
The Niners were closely linked to Jones after they engineered a blockbuster trade to acquire the No. 3 pick from the Miami Dolphins, sending them the 12th pick, 2022 and 2023 first-round picks and a third-round pick in 2022. Shortly after the deal, national reports indicated the move was made to land Jones, whose profile fit the kind of quarterbacks coach Kyle Shanahan had success with in the past, particularly Matt Ryan of the Atlanta Falcons and Kirk Cousins of the Minnesota Vikings.
The Bears were lurking with the No. 20 pick, a spot in which they were going to have to trade up to draft one of the remaining quarterbacks and say the guy who fell to them was the one they wanted all along.
They paid their own high price to move to No. 11 in a trade with the New York Giants, and they’ll be without first- and third-round picks in 2022 as part of the deal.
While the Bears have the worst passing offense in the league — they have 871 net passing yards, the fewest through seven games in the NFL in 15 years — and Lance bides his time on the bench, Jones has settled in while avoiding some of the flustering moments that haunt rookie quarterbacks.
“I thought of all the guys after Lawrence, Jones was the most-ready to play as a rookie,” a scout said. “The vast majority of what he was doing translated to the NFL. He was the most accurate, he was the most accurate under pressure, he played with the most timing and in rhythm. He understood defenses and where he had to go with hots. He just understood the game. He was going to come out of the gates the quickest. He doesn’t have the highest ceiling.
“That’s the rub. Are you going to take a guy that is good, maybe great or are you going to shoot for high ceiling and great? If you just want to hit a double at that position, great. If you are swinging for the fence, you go for Lance or Fields.”
Said another scout: “In the draft, you’re planning for upside for someone that can eventually develop into a scheme-transcendent quarterback. Mac Jones, in my opinion, will always be a scheme-dependent quarterback. But he can operate and produce. What is the ceiling for him? It is Cousins or higher? I don’t know.
“What you’re saying with Fields or Lance is, in three years, can they be Josh Allen? They have that level of physical tools where Mac Jones is the pocket guy.”
Shanahan has been able to tap the brakes, briefly, on calls for Lance to play as the rookie returns from a minor knee injury. But Shanahan consistently has stated the team wants Lance to learn from practice and as the backup on game days. Of course, you can look at some of the greatest quarterbacks in history and note that guys such as Peyton Manning and Troy Aikman were able to blossom after rough rookie seasons.
“You never know until they get in,” Shanahan said. “You want to put a guy in the best circumstances for him, so you have better percentages and chances of it working out in a good way for him. Whether it is good or bad, you don’t know, you want that to lead to him having a good offseason and what goes into the next season. But the reason I answered that is because I understand the 2,000 different ways for us to ask the same type of question. And I get that because we’ve lost four games in a row and we’re sitting here at 2-4 and that’s the easy thing to talk about, but that’s not a very smart thing for us.
“You don’t just (promote Lance) because you’re not playing the way you want to play and think you’re just going to put in a rookie and he’s going to be the answer to everything. I don’t think that’s fair to him and I don’t think that’s right for our team.”
The Bears chose a different path, sticking with Fields even when Dalton returned from a bone bruise in his left knee. They’re hoping Fields will show progress, though it has been difficult to assess because the passing game has been such a mess.
How would Jones fare in the Bears offense?
“Boy, that’s hard to speculate,” the second scout said. “That’s a great question because the one thing you would worry about with that team is his lack of mobility behind that offensive line. It would have to be more quick-game based, and they would have to really scheme to take their intermediate and deep shots downfield because he is a pocket guy, and behind a line that is talent-deficient like the Bears’, you’d have some concerns.”
Time will tell if the Bears’ approach or the 49ers’ approach will work. Both could prove to be helpful. Both rookies could fizzle out. Both teams have tons invested in their quarterbacks, and the other difference is that Niners GM John Lynch and Shanahan probably have a longer leash than Ryan Pace and Matt Nagy. That could explain, in part, the 49ers’ thought process.
“We didn’t draft Trey to just fix this year,” Shanahan said. “We drafted him so he could be the quarterback here of the future. And I get that’s a matter of time, but we’re not playing him just because of what our record is or just because of that. Just because of how our last four games have gone, that doesn’t really affect whether we’re playing Trey or not right now.”
