When the Chicago Bears and Baltimore Ravens face off Sunday at Soldier Field, it’ll feature two of the NFL’s young, exciting quarterbacks in Justin Fields and Lamar Jackson.
While Fields is just seven starts into his young career, where he’s looking to build off his best game to date, Jackson has already established himself as one of the most dynamic quarterbacks in the league.
That starts with Jackson’s ability as a runner, where he’s the most dangerous quarterback with his legs. The key for Chicago will be to bring the pressure on Jackson and prevent him from extending plays with his freakish athleticism. But lost in his mobility is his ability as a passer.
Jackson has faced his share of critics coming out of college, where many classified him as a running back or wide receiver rather than a quarterback due to his mobility. Since then, Jackson has proven everyone wrong, and it’s something that Fields has admired about the Ravens QB.
“There’s not many guys who are like Lamar Jackson,” Fields said. “He does stuff that some receivers, running backs can’t even do. … Just all of the backlash he got coming out of college saying he was a running back and stuff like that, he’s just proving everybody wrong and, of course, he’s one of the best in the league right now. So just seeing that young Black quarterbacks can get the job done — and we don’t have to be old-fashioned Pro-style passers to get it done — it just shows that it’s kind of a new wave coming and that athletic guys can play quarterback also.”
Count Fields among the new wave of athletic quarterbacks in the NFL, where he’s already shown he can use his arm or legs to torch opponents, but there’s still plenty of growth on the way.
In his final year at Ohio State, Fields would try to learn from watching Jackson.
“I would turn on his highlights and study how he ran the read option, how his feet were and how he kind of got a running start,” Fields said. “When he runs the read option, he staggers his feet so he can be already in a running position to run the ball after he’s reading the defensive ends.”
When Fields and Jackson meet on the field Sunday, get ready for some sparks.
