Through four games, Bears quarterback Justin Fields is last in the NFL in passer rating (58.7), last in passing yards (471) and last in completion percentage (50.7). But first in the heart of offensive coordinator Luke Getsy.
While many outside Halas Hall are trying to figure out why Fields is reminding them more and more of the Mitch Trubisky Experience, Getsy sees a quarterback on the rise, growing with each practice and each game.
That disparity came to the forefront Thursday when Getsy was asked whether Fields’ “rough month” to start the season was affecting his confidence.
“Well, I don’t think he’s had a rough month,” Getsy said. “I think he’s gotten better each week. I think he’s growing tremendously.”
This is Justin Fields we’re talking about, right?
“It’s not easy,” Getsy said. “We’re playing good football teams. And it’s not easy to become the level of quarterback that I know that he can become. So the important thing is that we stay focused, keep our eyes on that process and make sure we get better every week. And I believe we’re at that phase.”
It’s not unusual for those on the outside to have a different perspective than those on the inside. But with Fields, it’s almost like we’re looking at him through one end of the binoculars and Getsy is looking at him through the other end — producing two radically different views of the same player.
That’s why every week we ask Getsy what’s wrong with Fields and what has to happen for him to develop into an elite quarterback. And Getsy responds with detailed explanations, but expresses none of the concern.
And he’s good with that.
“I know what I know and I believe what I believe. And what we do in this building is what we pay attention to,” Getsy said. “The questions you [reporters] ask, that’s your right to ask whatever you want, and as long as we stay focused on what we know and what we believe in, we know that in the end we’re going to get where we want to get.”
We’ll see about that. For those of us who have seen quarterbacks come and go in this town, we’re at that early stage where we don’t know if Luke Getsy is a legitimate quarterback whisperer or just another first-time offensive-guy-in-charge propping up his young quarterback by accentuating the positive — only to ultimately fail and move on to the next guy or get fired.
For instance, when Fields overthrew an open Cole Kmet and was intercepted against the Texans in Week 3, it looked like a red flag — an unpressured throw that Fields probably hits routinely in practice, but when it counted, was instead air-mailed and intercepted.
Getsy not only didn’t lament Fields’ failure on that play, he celebrated his “phenomenal footwork” as a sign of progress. “It was actually a brilliant play by him,” Getsy said. “How he handled it and his decision-making — all that was great. He just missed a throw.”
Fields looked like an upgrade over Trubisky from the time he stepped on the practice field at rookie mini-camp in 2021. But he hasn’t been passing the eye test lately. He’s inaccurate on simple throws. He has failed to find the open receiver. It sure looked like he’s had trouble pulling the trigger, but Getsy doesn’t see it that way (“No. No. No. Not at all.”).
He’s been more methodical than instinctive — like when he missed an opportunity to hit an open Mooney downfield against the Giants, despite Mooney running the wrong route, and scrambled for a first down (“I was just doing what I was told.”) And Fields is taking too many hits — not only on sacks (six of them last week), but on scrambles.
It’s enough to make you wonder if he’ll ever make it. But Getsy doesn’t even look at Fields development in those terms.
“We have a lot more than just evaluating Justin Fields going on right now,” Getsy said. “That’s what everybody wants [is] to evaluate the quarterback all the time, and I get it. It’s all good. [But] this process is for all 11.
“There’s so many factors going into what’s going on around Justin, to just sit here and say, ‘Oh we’re only focused on [whether] this guy going to be the guy or not,’ — that’s literally not even on my mind or I don’t think that’s on anybody’s mind in this building.
“We’re just in the process of getting better. How can we get each guy in this building to get better every and every week? As long as we continue to get better, then we’re going in the right direction.”
