Tape Tells All: Has Justin Fields Finally Arrived?

Welcome back to Tape Tells All, the weekly series where I look at film and data for something that happened in the NFL this week.

This week, we're looking at the recent play of Chicago Bears quarterback Justin Fields. After a choppy start to his NFL career, is Fields finally positioned for success?

He's now finished as a top 12 fantasy quarterback for four consecutive games, including back-to-back finishes as the QB5. He's the only player with top-five finishes in both of the last two games. Is Fields now a top fantasy quarterback?

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Justin Fields Background

As a rookie, Justin Fields wasn't great. The Ohio State product—who I thought then and still think now was the second-best QB prospect last year behind Trevor Lawrence—started 10 games as a rookie, throwing for 1,870 yards with seven touchdowns and 10 interceptions. He completed 58.9% of his passes and also added 420 rushing yards and two touchdowns.

Looking at PFF's weekly fantasy finishes data from last year, we see that Fields had some flashes, with four weeks as a top 10 quarterback. His best weekly finish was QB3, and in the last five games he played, only once was he not a top-10 fantasy QB. So while his rookie campaign started out poorly, Fields started to put some things together.

This year began similarly. Fields finished outside the top 20 at the position for the first four weeks of the season, but now he's finished top 12 every week sense. So, what happened?

Well, over the first four games of the year, Fields was averaging 16.8 pass attempts per game, along with 8.5 rushing attempts. In the last four, he's averaging 23 pass attempts and 10.5 rushing attempts. So...it's kind of just a volume thing, in a sense. The Bears have gotten more comfortable letting Fields throw the football over the last month.

Chicago still ranks near the bottom of the league in passing play percentage, but they aren't going out there and having their quarterback throw just 11 passes now. The way that Fields' usage has trended has really helped.

But it also helps that he's been more efficient. Over the last four games, Fields has completed at least 60% of his passes three times, with two games over 70%. In the first four games, he completed 60% of his passes once, and was never over 70%. He seems to have improved his accuracy, which keeps the chains moving and ups the potential volume.

He's also a major threat with his legs, which ups his fantasy floor by a good bit. Fields has 47 or more rushing yards in six consecutive games. The Bears keep designing run plays for him, and it's working so far.

Justin Fields' Week 7 and 8 Performances

Let's focus specifically on two weeks of Fields' performances here, since he has back-to-back QB5 finishes.

Week 7 @ NE: 13-for-21 for 179 yards, one touchdown, one interception; 14 carries for 82 yards and a touchdown
Week 8 @ DAL: 17-for-23 for 151 yards, two touchdowns; eight crarries for 60 yards and a touchdown

The first thing you might notice: he's been a top five fantasy QB despite throwing for under 200 yards in both of those games. I find that to be a good sign: it shows that his rushing yardage is a huge advantage. With the addition of a real No. 1 receiver at the deadline (or, at least, a guy who you can pair with Darnell Mooney and have two solid No. 2 guys), the passing yardage should improve. I mean... by acquiring Chase Claypool, maybe this won't happen as often going forward:

There's Fields throwing a perfectly placed 53-yard touchdown...if the receiver hadn't dropped it. And sure, maybe he would have been tackled at the two and it would have been a 51-yard non-touchdown, but the point still stands: his receivers are leaving fantasy points on the table. Claypool should help with that.

Digging into some advanced box scores from these two weeks, we can also see some good signs. In the win over New England, Fields had 0.23 EPA/play, while the Patriots two quarterbacks were at -0.35 and -0.45. And Fields also added 0.38 EPA/play on his rushing attempts. Against Dallas, his EPA/play fell to 0.08, which is pretty much right in the center of where EPA/play numbers have gone league-wide.

Fields has really been pushing the ball down the field this year, with an overall aDOT of 9.21, which is the highest of all full-time starters. That aggressiveness isn't necessarily paying off just yet, as he's completed just 632 air yards, which ranks just 27th in the NFL. But again...Claypool's addition helps with that.

Maybe I'm overstating the importance of Chase Claypool here. But Fields is playing the exact kind of football that makes a fantasy QB1: he throws deep and he adds a huge amount of value with his legs. If he can start to hit on those deep balls more consistently, that would be a nice boost in value.

This play above wasn't from the past two weeks and it was called back by penalty, but it's a good look at just how dynamic Fields is as a runner. He's already one of the NFL's best running QBs, and now we just need to work on the passing.

Justin Fields Fantasy Value

The rushing upside alone would make Fields a borderline QB1 play every week, even if he was still struggling to throw and was getting under 20 attempts per game.

But with the Bears making a concerted effort to help Fields out—both from a volume perspective and from a personnel perspective—I think the ceiling for Fields has jumped.

At this point, I'm comfortable ranking Fields as a top 10 quarterback ROS. The rushing production has been consistent. The passing performance is improving. He's throwing a touchdown on 4.4% of plays this year, up from 2.6% last year, and while he's only at 149.9 passing yards per game, we don't need Fields to throw for 300 yards for him to have fantasy appeal.

Going forward, I'd obviously take Josh Allen, Jalen Hurts, Lamar Jackson and Patrick Mahomes as my top four QBs ROS, not necessarily in that order. Then, I think there's a Justin Herbert and Kyler Murray tier, but then you get to a pretty big group of players who might be interchangeable. Basically, there are six QBs who I'd definitely take over Fields, and then there's Joe Burrow, Dak Prescott, Tua Tagovailoa and Fields rounding out the top 10. Fields offers rushing upside that the others don't really, making him the upside play out of that group.

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