PFF's latest rankings put Justin Fields at QB18

Alright, Sam Monster from Pro Football Focus joins us now for football night in Chicago. Sam, thanks for joining me. I appreciate your time. Thanks for inviting me. You just released your top quarterback

rankings

for 2023. Where did Justin Fields end up? those

rankings

and, more importantly, why yes, I mean, Fields is a tough quarterback to rank right now, so he's nowhere near the top even though we've seen last season that He is a dynamic athlete, he has a special talent with the ball in his hands and clearly you. We know when he came out when so far in the NFL we know that he has the arm that can make all the throws, but there is that big leap forward that we need to see from him as a passer in 2023 and beyond and now that he has some help some receivers with the to work on, hopefully we'll see that type of jump from him, but until that happens, I think you still need to put him in the lower group of quarterbacks until we see a definite jump from him as a type of passer.

Out of curiosity when you look at his 2022 season, this is something we struggled with, how did you determine what was Justin's fault and what was simply due to the situation the Bears put him in? Yeah, it's very difficult, I mean, the quarterback position is inevitably intertwined. with a lot of other dependent factors and confusing influences and the offensive line as well and the lack of perceived help is another scheme, all these types of things come together and it's kind of impossible to extract the quarterback from the environment he's in. This is done shot by shot and you can say you know it's a positive play, it's a negative play, etc., and that's where some sort of PFF grade comes into play, but you can't really quantify what the lack of helps, but the receiver, it makes for The process of a quarterback, you know if they're just not going to give a guy a chance because they know he's probably not going to get open or, if he does get open, they're going to lose him at the catch point and all that sort of stuff, so you really have to put a pin in it and just say this is the rating, with the circumstance that we see that it's been dealt with and we know it's not good, so you have to assume there's more to come or at least I know that's probably an artificially negative reality for what he's facing, because when you look at what the regime did to the roster around Justin Fields last year, there might not have been a quarterback with a situation The bottom line is that they took all kinds of quality players and tried to put themselves in a position where they could really rebuild this year, but that meant that Justin Fields was going to have almost nothing with what to work on, so what does Justin need? show us this season to emerge as the best quarterback in the NFC North heading into 2024.

I think we need to see a jump from a passing standpoint, we need a higher level of consistency with his accuracy, his accuracy has been a little hit or Miss, in the NFL so far we know that he is capable of putting absolute dimes anywhere on the field. We saw it in college at Ohio State, we just need to see it consistently now with some weapons at the NFL level and then we need a higher baseline. kind of work inside the pocket, he's too prone to running the way things are right now and there's a good reason for that, he's an incredible athlete, you know, he makes incredible plays on the ground and he didn't necessarily have help as a passer, but if that The balance needs to shift a little bit more toward his job as a passing quarterback, but you know, I think the baseline that he's shown career-wise in terms of special throws, special plays means you know if he can correct that. balance it out a bit, he has the talent to be the best now that Aaron Rodgers is no longer in the division, you also just released your wide receiver grade on PFF DJ Moore, checking in at number 16.

How much more important will he be in The Justin Field's maturation process this season is absolutely huge and I think it's such an important part of that trade for Chicago to get out of the number one overall move in the draft, the fact that they were able to effectively draft a number one wide receiver. in the process makes it an absolutely fantastic deal for them because this was not a good year to try to find one of those guys that you know free agency wasn't great in terms of true number one receiver talent even in the draft it was heard a lot. which is a good group of wide receivers, but there is no Jamar Chase in this draft class, there is no one who can become that true number one and definitely dominate from the beginning.

DJ Moore has shown that he can be that guy in Carolina, he has been relatively quarterback proof. Throughout his career he also had success with just about anyone who threw him the ball, so yeah, I think that completely changes the outlook for Chicago's wide receivers and allows everyone else to move down a notch on the depth chart where They can potentially be more effective than they otherwise would be. That's when they're more of a dominant force with no one else around to care about people who maybe weren't tuned in to the Panthers the last three years.

In what specific ways do you think DJ is going to help Justin the most? I think he's just a solid person. receiver across the board he's very good at generating separation he's got quickness he's got good feet um he's pretty brave to pass mid catches May he's good after the catch he's a pretty good guy at the catch point I think he's pretty good - Excellent wide receiver and a guy who can give you an incredibly high downfield line that Justin Fields hasn't had yet in his career as far as building around Justin. This was and continues to be a great offseason for the Bears.

You gave the Bears an A minus for their offseason, what specifically did you like about what they did and what moves do you think they should have made but didn't? Yes, I think they have done a lot and they have really done it. I kind of wasted resources on this and I did a good job of deploying the capital, the mass of um data, stripping it all away a year ago and the arrival of DJ Moore was a big part of that, a negative gray that I think when Factor in the number one trade, the additional Capital they acquired, and the arrival of DJ Moore, that becomes an incredibly good deal for them.

His free agency was interesting and actually kind of a free agency and in the draft there were some players that they brought in. I wasn't necessarily enamored from a talent or playstyle standpoint, but I think every time I didn't agree with a specific staff decision, they almost isolated it or had a backup plan that I really liked. I end up in the middle and I like the overall approach, like you know Tremaine Edmonds is a real risk in terms of a career year, an incredible amount of money at the linebacker position, but he's a risky guy to sign for that amount of money. money, but then they signed TJ Edwards for a fraction of the cost and he's going to be an incredibly good linebacker and a guy who doesn't have a flashy athletic build like Edmonds, but he's been, you know, a really good linebacker in his own right in a way. similar.

In the draft, you know, Tyree Stevenson, he wasn't crazy as a prospect, but later in the Minnesota draft, Terrell Smith, I think he's a phenomenal prospect and a really underrated guy, so every time they drafted a player, I don't necessarily. I love it, I used to really like the backup option that they got there, which I think in itself is a smart way to approach, you know, roster construction, if you have a need, don't do it, don't have the kind of arrogance to think. that you're going to be able to do it with one move, always try to isolate those decisions and create backup and contingency strategies and I think they've done a really good job of that this offseason, now there's one thing they didn't do What I really do is address The Edge's career position, but they still have $32 million to spend, which remaining free agents do you think would make the most sense for the Bears?

I know Yannick and Goku are out there Justin Houston Leonard Floyd yes it's possible Leonard Floyd It's interesting, he's the guy that I think has been a productive pass rusher throughout his career, maybe he didn't live up to what the people expected of him, but he is a good player, it depends on what the cost is for him. Being in Gakway he is a similar type of person in terms of you know what you are going to get from him. You will get some pressure. You'll get a reasonable baseline to rush the passer. In reality, he won't be a factor in the run game.

So you're going to need to find a solution to that part, but there are definitely a couple of guys like that, I think they have the right age profile for a team that's trying to build and go down the road. and they could be longer term solutions, obviously someone like Justin Houston is a more acute need for Bridge in the short term, but he won't be there long term. There's a lot of optimism surrounding the Bears right now, which is pretty typical for May. but understanding that this is really, you're one of those rebuilding after a simplification, what do you think are fair expectations for both Justin and the team as a whole in 2023?

Yeah, and I think they're very closely linked, you know we need. See a major step forward from Justin Fields now. I think they put him in a really tough situation last year and he exceeded expectations. You know, he earned that job with his performance and showed a level of dynamism on the field, but I don't think so. that a lot of people really expected of him coming into the NFL, now we need to see the next step of his evolution and get on that kind of jail-and-pain path that the Eagles showed over the last few years where we constantly improved. year after year after year and obviously that ended with Jalen getting hurt and the Eagles in the Super Bowl last year, you know, maybe a year or two away from Chicago, but this year they need to close that gap that they need to go from being the number one overall pick to somewhere in the middle of a group where you have noticeable improvement from Fields as a passer and everyone ends the year feeling good about the direction this team is going, great Sam Monson, it was a cost effective approach.

A pleasure, thanks for the knowledge, no problem, thanks for inviting me.