We’re 3 years into the Justin Fields experience and the passing still feels raw… so… Idk maybe he’s smarter than we gave him credit for.
Andy Dalton was by far the better QB at the time. Truthfully, Justin shouldn’t have even been the backup. He should have been inactive. Dude got thrown to the wolves before he was ready.
This was the dumbest part about it. If you wanted him to learn for a year, make him QB3 or inactive. Instead, Dalton gets hurt & Fields is thrown in.
Its now very obvious Fields needed a year to sit & learn. Dalton was serviceable.
Ok, so here’s the deal. Most Rookie QBs aren’t handed the starting Job.
They “Earn” it. Sometimes it’s pre-season, most time early in the regular season.
If your rookie QB isn’t starting by week 7-8 he’s either sitting for the year, or in serious trouble.
It’s a hustle coaches have been running forever.
Also: Matt Nagy is a dweeb. He never did find the whys.
You’re right, but by those standards, Fields still doesn’t deserve a starting spot. He’s won 6 games in 3 years and he still can’t read a defense or make reliable adjustments at the line. He hasn’t earned a starting spot with his play either, as he averages 160 passing yards per game. That’s not good enough.
There are lots of reasons not to like Nagy. But after 2.5 years of watching Fields play exciting but very flawed football, I’m surprised there’s anyone left who thinks it was stupid to take his development slowly
Was frustrating at the time, but we found out why this happened. Nagy had to guarantee Dalton the starting job to come to Chicago.
There’s lots I dislike about Nagy but starting Dalton week 1 was the right decision
The wrong decision was playing fields against the brown’s defense that had like 7 sacks on him because Nagy played fields exactly like Dalton
Matt Nagy was way better than Eberflus. Nagy didn’t work out but he’s the kind of guy we should be hiring.
Nagy will almost certainly get another shot at being a HC - Eberflus is probably not going to get another shot.
Ownership forced his hand. I remember that week on Monday he said Andy would start then had to do a press conference on Tuesday saying he had an epiphany and changed his mind LOL.
There were plenty of stupid things that Nagy did and said during his tenure here, but it’s been clear as day for going on three seasons now that Fields was not ready to play as a rookie. At all. And is still, to this day, working things out.
Sitting him for the year and playing Dalton was 100% a better decision than throwing in Fields too soon, and it sucks that Andy got hurt that year and forced Nagy to throw Fields in well before he was ready.
Remember Nagy scheduled a meeting with Trubisky to discuss getting better after the 2019 season and then just completely ghosted him? I will never miss “coach” Matt Nagy.
Nagy was right in this one. But as much as I would’ve hated it we needed to make Foles QB2.
But yes Fields would’ve been better off if we kept the last regime instead of this one.
I mean, from what Josh Lucas has said everyone was in agreement that he should have sat the entire first year. In fact, they drafted him specifically planning to let him develop a bit more because of some of the pre-draft concerns people had regarding Fields.
In my opinion, I wish Andy would have started that entire season, Giving Justin reps in blowouts or garbage time action to allow him to build with live reps without overwhelming him.
But it’s football, and no matter how old or young you may be, the next man up mentality is crucial. Dalton going down with injury basically opened a can of worms that couldn’t be put back, and Nagy basically stuck with JF after Andy’s recovery because he knew the pressure from the fan base/front office was too high.
Look, I know hindsight is 20/20 and as time passes the rose-colored lenses set in. But if we are comparing strictly on a 1-1 basis, I’d take Nagy over Flus in a heartbeat. And while his scheme was eroding, and really hurt Justin early on, I don’t truly think he had quite enough time to understand Justin as a player overall. He never got to see this version of Fields, or anything close to it for that matter. With a full offseason with him as QB1, he would have gotten more out of JF than Flus/Getsy has.
And before you comment to remind me how bad Nagy was at times, don’t bother. I know he wasn’t a good HC at all by the end of it, and there’s a vast amount of coaches I would choose over him. It’s just that, in this case, Flus is not one of those coaches. Neither is Getsy in my opinion.
That was actually one of Nage’s best decisions. The dude made the right move. Rookie QB’s benefit from sitting for a bit behind a guy who can teach they how to be a QB in the NFL. Even Mahomes sat his rookie season and it helped him get his feet wet before being thrown to the dogs.
I guess the OP forgot about that Browns game.
They don’t remember that preseason. Too many nightmares since then. They’ve forgotten.
But playing Dalton was always going to be week 1 and as long as necessary to protect Fields development. Fields only played because Dalton scrambled and hurt his knee or leg. Then Fields was totally destroyed.
Maybe he was on to something.
No one put a spell on the bears. The issue is that the mccaskeys choose who to hire and they don’t know shit about football