With all talk lately centering on Justin Fields or Caleb Williams for the Bears at quarterback next year, one of the key components in playing the position has been overlooked after it had been a hot topic.This would be the amount of time it takes a passer to throw.
Fields came into the season with the Bears talking extensively about how he needed to get the ball out of his hand faster. Before he suffered the dislocated thumb, he was at 2.97 seconds to throw this season, which represented a drop of .14 seconds from last year.
At this point, Fields also had a much higher passer rating and higher yards per attempt.
Everything seemed to be looking up for him.
Now Fields’ has a passer rating of 84.5, which is .7 worse than last year. This is never good. It shows he is hitting a plateau.
His yards per attempt have dipped from 7.1 to a career-low 6.7. Six of his nine interceptions were thrown in the fourth quarter.
Beyond many of those negative numbers is the time to throw. It has ballooned up to a career-high of 3.21 seconds, 40th in the NFL and last among QBs who are tracked by NFL NextGen Stats.
He threw it faster than this under Matt Nagy and last year.
Fields addressed all numbers after Sunday’s win in a manner connsistent with how he has in the past.
“Yeah, as long as we win, I’m not really a numbers guy, you know?” he said. “All I know is one went up in the win column today, so that’s all I care about.”
Bottom-line thinking is noble and also not really conducive to longevity. Coaches and GMs actually will look at the numbers, especially the time to throw. Have no doubt about this.
However, the slow time to throw doesn’t necessarily mean Fields is headed out of town.
If you go by the way Williams has behaved, it’s possible he might not even be wanted.
Besides handling his team’s losing and his own declining stats poorly in 2023, he tweeted out a “like” for a comment on “X” Christmas Eve suggesting the Bears should draft Marvin Harrison Jr. first.
Some wanted to interpret this as his support for Bears QB Justin Fields.
Sure.
Of bigger concern to the Bears and anyone else should be the way Williams himself held onto the ball far too long.
In a story he wrote after the fiasco Williams had against Notre Dame, Pro Football Focus’ Trevor Sikkema said Williams’ time to throw from a clean pocket had been an extremely slow 3.44 seconds in 2022 when he won the Heisman. His time to throw passes of 5 yards or longer this year had been 3.21 seconds, which Sikkema said was slower than any of the QBs on PFF’s “big board.” No one else was within .18 seconds.
If the Bears are trading Fields and getting someone with the same issues, they actually might be far better off just keeping their current QB and drafting Harrison first.
The best conclusion for Williams to draw from reaction to his “like” of that tweet should be to leave his “X” account alone.
There are NFL personnel people all to willing to forget about talented players because of things that happen away from football. Ask Jalen Carter.
The Bears are in no position to discount passers for some silliness on “X,” but the time to pass the ball is no intangible. It’s real.
The thing everyone needs to remember with Williams is even if he takes too long to throw, when he decides where he’s throwing it, the ball is then out so fast it makes up for the extra time he took holding on to it. His release is Marino-esque. It’s effortless, extremely short, powerful and quick. And it can come from any arm angle, much like with Patrick Mahomes.
All of this will be weighed.
Fields has had three years of the NFL to show what everyone can anticipate from him. He’s concerned about wins and not stats, he says. He doesn’t have enough of those or enough stats but there have definitely been worse quarterbacks.
Williams is a great unknown and more will actually be known when the postseason talent process begins.
The Bears need to watch how he throws and apparently how he tweets, then carefully determine if they’d even be getting something better than what Fields already gives them.
The stats that matter now might not be Fields’ to ignore in the name of the victories he hasn’t produced.
Instead, they’re the speed of Williams’ passes and delivery, his accuracy with the ball and his 40 time. The ball is going to be in Williams’ court now in postseason evaluation.
The Bears will have a decision to make.
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