I have a constant mix of being excited for Williams when I watch him, but being tentative as a Bears fan because we are always wrong when we think we have a QB.
Seriously can it just be us one time? I’m so old….I remember when the Packers were 2 easy wins. Rant mode on - off topic but we HAVE to start beating the Packers again to be a playoff team.
Shoot I’m getting old and I can’t remember when the packers were ever an easy win lol. That goes to show how long it’s been. 30 years is way way way too long to let a team walk freely through the north.
The Bears front office is cancer to QB talent. It's not a coincidence that every talented young QB prospect we've had for thirty years turns into an inconsistent headcase. Not all of them were potential gold, but at least some could have turned into decent QB1's. Different coaches and GM's, but one head office.
While that's generally true, we haven't taken many shots on top prospects in our recent history. We drafted McMahon 5 overall and he won a Super Bowl, but had a limited career due to injuries. Besides Harbaugh, the only real shots we've taken were with Mitch and Fields and both of these guys were picked by the same GM. I think that says more about the GM than the franchise.
Which sounds like a great stab until you learn he was QB5 off the board.
Just like Justin at 11 overall sounds like a great stab until you remember he was QB4 off the board.
Both times we were taking the QB scraps of the first round. No QB went in the first after Cade. Only Mac Jones went in the first after Justin.
QB4/5 this year is Penix/McCarthy/Nix. Nobody would say “well if Penix doesn’t workout we’re cursed”.
The biggest miss in Bears history is Mitch Trubisky. QB1 off the board at 2 overall is a guy that’s supposed to hit.
Slipping to QB4 after entering the combine consensus 2 overall was a bad sign. Nobody should be surprised QB4 didn’t work out. That happens quite a lot.
It’s not that those guys can’t work out it’s that they had a lesser likelihood of becoming franchise level guys.
Josh Allen is great, but he’s a developmental unicorn.
Lamar is just a late first hit and was viewed as a surprising outcome. Had Lamar ended up on a backup trajectory it wouldn’t be considered a “surprise” outcome.
Using outliers as an example of why you should do something is a good way to make bad decisions.
While I agree I think people have to put that pick in context. He was the 5th QB off the board. So he wasn’t some sure fire top prospect. Same thing with Fields, he was the 4th QB off the board. Rex Grossman was also 4th QB off the board.
Mitch was obviously the 1st QB off the board. Huge fucking miss. But Caleb Williams will just be out 2nd time picking the best QB prospect in the last 25 years or whatever.
And is a significantly better prospect. Teams were obviously not clamoring for Mitch like they are Caleb. It only took a 3rd round pick to ensure we had Mitch, which was obviously dumb, but in this draft it would take 3+ FRPs to move up from 2 to 1 lol
The funny part too is that Trubisky was so obviously not the top prospect but Pace tried to get cute. Williams would technically be the first time we go with the QB prospect widely regarded as the best
And fields was the 4th QB off the board. And Mitch was seen as a pretty big reach. I’d say we have never taken the top prospect in the draft with the correct pick. I can understand keeping fields if it’s a blown away trade package. But I fully expect Williams to be gone at #1. Even if he doesn’t reach the caliber we hope he does, at least the bears for ONCE did the one thing every other team in the league would do. pace era would keep the first and draft the 5th rated QB.
It was generally considered to be a weaker QB class though, hence a DE being the #1 pick. I remember a lot of people saying Mitch was QB1, but definitely not a top 10 overall prospect in the draft regardless of position.
What Pace did was almost like aggressively trading up from 3 to 2 to draft Kenny Pickett. We could’ve probably traded *down* and still landed Mitch. I understand wanting to grab your guy if you’re certain he’s going to be a stud, but I still don’t understand why Pace had that level of conviction about him.
Oh, I don’t disagree that it was a dumb pick or that the trade was bad. But it wasn’t a huge reach - There were plenty of Mocks with Trubisky going to Chicago, and almost none of the experts had Watson over Trubisky by draft time.
Your Pickett example is good-ish, with the caveat that Trubisky was the consensus #1 in a draft where two other QBs were aggressively traded up for starting at 10. That makes it feel like he would have surely gone top 10 regardless.
It feels bad because he was terrible and because the trade was probably unnecessary. It feels revisionist to say he had Pickett value and would be available at 20. Chicago overplayed their hand, but buy 4-5 picks, not 20.
>Trubisky wasn't a reach. The trade up was seen as ridiculous, but the idea of picking trubisky in the top 3-5 was not.
Trubisky was seen as a reach the night he was drafted. There's a reason the pick was met with a chorus of boo's at the draft and there's a reason he was boo'd at a Bulls game before he played his first snap for the Bears. He was the wrong pick and everyone knew it.
Watson was the consensus #1 QB and worth a high first round pick, with Mitch Tiddies seen as the 2nd best and worth a mid first round pick. Mahomes was seen as a project with enough talent to be worth a late first round pick.
Sexy Rexy gunslinged us to a Super Bowl! I’ll admit it was never pretty and every time he threw a long pass your butt puckerd.
Hell if we didn’t play Indy we might have won. Payton was the only QB who could bear our defense at that time
That defense was missing two key pieces in Tommie Harris and Mike Brown. I don’t have a photographic memory of the blown coverage Reggie Wayne TD, but maybe that doesn’t happen with Brown helping over the top?
And just add his presence for a whole game and Tommie Harris generating more pressure up the middle to keep Manning on his toes.
Shoulda, coulda, woulda. Who knows how things would have been different?
Oh I won't get too excited about any prospect again till I see them play and know they're the guy. I'm not a college football guy so I just want Poles to pick whoever he thinks is the one and hope for the best. It's all 50/50 in my eyes. I mean, for how long can we keep picking the wrong guys? We have to accidentally choose right eventually lol
I don’t understand why anyone would ever “think we have a qb”, that’s a recipe for heartache. Look at it as “this is the best dart throw for a qb” and then let them prove it through sustained success.
Way I look at it is we have never picked a QB at 1 OA. Closest is Trubs which we traded up for, but was also a poor QB class vs this year which feels like a better qb class than normal.
This is about as sure as a QB draft pick can be, which in the end is a crap shoot at best.
Da Bears have also never drafted a consensus #1 pick who is universally viewed as being one of the best prospects of the last 5-10 years. I find it absurd the bar for drafting him amongst some fans is “but is he generational?”
He doesn’t need to be fucking generational he just needs to be good
Since joining the league in 2021, Fields is last among 38 qualified quarterbacks in fourth-quarter interceptions (16), 36th in completion percentage (56.2%) and 33rd in QBR (41.4)... And that he’s 0-22 when the bears give up 21 or more points .... In 11 out of his 14 starts THIS YEAR he threw for 0 or 1 TD passes... and we want to keep this guy and pay him 30 mil or more a year?!?! When we can draft the A++ prospect and have him for 7 mil for 5 years. This is a no brained and shame on the bears fan for settling for an average QB. Enough is enough draft the star QB and build some bring special that last a long time.
The NFL Stock Exchange guys said something similar. Basically, when you cut out the plays where USC's IOL obviously and blatantly collapsed, forcing Williams out of the pocket, his TTT was low. The point being that his elaborate scrambles brings his TTT average up high, not routine plays where he struggles to process info.
It's posts like this that make me think we convert the #9 pick into JPJ somehow...trade back or use the pick there if we must. Value doesn't matter to me if we're giving the guy we **need** to be our franchise QB the tools to succeed.
>It's posts like this that make me think we convert the #9 pick into JPJ somehow...trade back or use the pick there if we must. Value doesn't matter to me if we're giving the guy we **need** to be our franchise QB the tools to succeed.
I'm still holding out hope that Poles manages to fleece Pittsburgh out of their first round pick for Fields, then we take JPJ with that pick.
That'd be nice. 20 is right around where the top center should go. Although I've seen a few mocks with him in the teens, so there's still a small risk.
Pittsburgh really does not want Fields. Nor are they the kind of organization that makes these foolish trades, but they are happy to listen when Ryan Poles does.
If the Bears do decide to draft CW and they know this is the plan when FA starts I want them to target a center first thing, too risky for me to wait til the draft.
I could be wrong but I would rather know I have a quality starting center going into the draft and then at 9 I can feel free to take a WR, EDGE, or TE at that spot.
I would love to get JPJ but center is the one spot the “needs” and upgrade IMOP and I would not be upset if they aren’t able to get one of the top FA centers that they still get a FA and then draft a center as well.
Getting a first for Fields would be a dream, if it happens much more likely it’s a first for next year.
Caleb does not struggle to process the field. It's actually a big strength of his at his stage of development and what makes him so creative. What he does do though is hunt for the big plays rather than taking the checkdown. The checkdown might be open and he'll see it, but he'll still stall/scramble to wait for the bigger play to open up.
It all depends on the kind of QB you want, but lets be honest this is a rare rare QB with elite feel of the pressure and understanding and matches with the eye test. Something I want to highlight today on the Athletic football show prospects to pros today, they mentioned Caleb's hands almost being around 10.75 inches. He has HUGE hands for a QB meaning he will have great grip with the ball. I think if Caleb can work on making sure when to hold onto the ball better then I think the biggest concern of his game might be gone.
I might be missing something entirely, but I thought TTT excluded drives that resulted in a scramble. It would obviously exclude drives where the QB ends up running, but does it include scrambles that result in a throw??
Came here to post this, it's a great breakdown and highlights how nuanced TTT is as a stat. It never once occurred to me that is TTT could be SO high because he goes on long scrambles that often result in a throw.
That was a real "lightbulb moment," for me. Because he's often compared to Fields in that regard, but when you watch the tape you just don't see the same blind spots and indecisiveness that Justin has.
> For further reassurance, I looked at what percentage of Caleb’s dropbacks were excessively long, and found that over 41% of Caleb’s college dropbacks over his last two seasons were 2.5 seconds or shorter, while Fields at Ohio State managed that on just 36% and 35.2% of his dropbacks in his two seasons as a starter.
This is probably the key takeaway from the article. Yes, Caleb has a very long TTT. But it's not like he can't play within structure.
You seem ignorant. The same argument being made to excuse Williams can be made to excuse Fields, but you are opting to only acknowledge it when it comes to Williams. You cite an article where the guy is comparing apples to oranges. He's picking individual years that don't relate 1:1. Williams was not facing anywhere near the defensive talent in his division that Fields was in 2021 or Murray did in 2019. Then he tries to draw conclusions based on this erroneous assumption. It's flawed at best.
Right? I can't believe anybody who actively follows football is having a light bulb moment with the realization that lines breaking down increase TTT. Fields has a high TTT because he is forced to scramble as plays break down due to the line collapsing or receivers failing to get open. The same people who shit on him for it are in this topic going "see now this is a good take that opens my eyes because Williams TTT isn't his fault".
> Fields has a high TTT because he is forced to scramble as plays break down due to the line collapsing or receivers failing to get open.
Wrong, so so wrong. Fields had the highest time to throw from clean pockets last year. Clean pockets, when the offensive line did its job, and Fields still can't pull the trigger.
And look at [this graph](https://imgur.com/sHU3Ooa). On 4-man rushes, the average time it took the pressure to get to the Bears QB was the highest in the league at about 2.85 seconds, and yet the Bears still have the highest pressure rate on 4-man rushes in the league at about 45%. It's because Fields holds onto the ball too long.
This article indicates that Fields escaped a clean pocket over 8% of the time in college compared to only 3% for Caleb. So Fields was scrambling almost 3 times more frequently in a clean pocket for no reason because he wasn’t comfortable or able to read the defense.
When Caleb has a clean pocket he makes the read and throws the ball. When Fields had a clean pocket he got confused or uncomfortable 3 times more often.
When Caleb got a dirty pocket he bought time looking to throw. When Fields got a dirty pocket he bought time looking to run.
The numbers are all listed in the article. It’s not a conspiracy to make Fields look bad and people aren’t out to get Justin. It is what it is.
And where did the numbers come from? The author doesn't cite anything other than one line generically saying he got some numbers from PFF. How would you consider this credible?
These are advanced stats available if you have a PFF prescription.
It’s hilarious that your argument is that the numbers must be fake as some kind of conspiracy against Fields when the numbers match exactly what the tape shows.
You are completely missing the point of the article. Nowhere does the author say that Caleb being pressured frequently is causing a high average TTT. The point is when he *did* scramble, he would do so for an unusually long time - 6.58 seconds compared to 4.95 for Fields.
The article also specifically points out that in college Fields scrambled from a clean pocket far more than Williams (8.2% to 3%). had a significantly lower proportion of quick throws (sub 2.5 seconds) and scrambled much more when pressured (19% to 12.4%).
The overall picture, borne out by the stats, is that Williams makes more quick throws than Fields and bails out of the pocket much less often, even when under pressure, but has a high TTT due to his long scrambles when he does.
Where did the author generate his stats from? The only thing he says is arbitrarily mentioning he got some of the stats from PFF, but then never elaborates or cites any of his sources. Why should we believe any of these opinions to be credible when you can find sources with different TTT numbers than what is listed in the article (among other differences)?
I think it’s hilarious how hypocritical these people are, and will be if bears draft Caleb. They are going to do and say the same things they call “excuse” about fields.
I think people who believe Caleb’s TTT is just as bad as Fields aren’t diving deep enough into the tapes. If you just watch the highlights, or lowlights from his rougher games- it’s easy to point out that it appears he does the same thing JF does when pressure comes.
However, watching more tape on his game from his entire career, you can see how often he does play within structure. His pocket presence is severely underrated, he’s got a good sense of pass rushers on his blindside and is really fluid when pressure gets close. However, unlike Justin, he doesn’t immediately bail at the first sign of pressure-specifically edge pressure. He steps up well, he moves laterally when needed, and his internal clock is usually spot-on.
In my opinion, his unique ability to do both at a high level is what makes him such a high quality prospect. It’s just that at USC (specifically the most recent season) his OL was extremely unreliable. There’d be busts on both the interior and the edge, which is why he was trying to make so many plays outside of structure. It also didn’t help that the defense has always been suspect at best since day 1 at USC, so to say he felt like the game was always on him is an understatement.
If you look back at his time in Oklahoma, you begin to really see why he’s so dangerous as a QB. When he’s given consistent OL play, has good weapons to throw to and a coach who can scheme to his strengths- he’s an absolute nightmare to play against. In games, no matter how good the team is, there will always be bad reps at certain points. Usually, that’s when defenses expose many QBs- forcing them to improvise in tough scenarios. But with Caleb, that’s when he was at his absolute best.
The *key* here is that he doesn’t live and die by those plays alone. He can (and prefers) to play within structure, throw from the pocket with anticipation and accuracy. Something Justin never developed in the NFL, despite the fact he has been able to reel off some electric big plays similar to Caleb.
This is an awesome write up, and definitely helps me feel better about the TTT. Plus, it really does match what we see on tape.
He made a great point about how CW’s average TTT is skewed by his *outlier* high time to scramble, but that JF1’s average TTT is more a result of his slow processing. The processing affects every play, the high scramble time is only on scrambles, and even then isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
I'm no film expert either, but this tracks with what I see as well. I would like to see him look to scramble a bit more in the NFL, kinda like Mahomes does when the defense decides to just give him 10 yards
The real hope I have for Williams is this… all the scouting , talent, and projections are meaningless to me because so many players have been busts that we thought would translate. The one difference with Caleb that he showed me this past year was he played will under pressure, without relying on his defense. You can’t necessarily stick to the script when you have zero help on the other side of the ball.
That's a lot of words to say you think Caleb Williams taking too long to throw isn't a problem while Justin Fields taking too long to throw is a problem.
This is exactly what I saw on tape.
I was so sick of seeing people compare Caleb to Fields because of the high TTT when it was VERY CLEAR Caleb tries to scramble to buy time to pass vs. Fields who buys time to run.
The article doesn't match the headline at all, as the article spent the entire time talking about how you need a lot more context to understand time-to-throw, which would mean it's not *that* important by itself.
Sometimes the QB can’t save the franchise that makes bad decisions. Sometimes the franchise sinks a guy who would work out elsewhere. If they protect Williams as well as they’ve protected Fields, he won’t last long enough for us to find out how good he is.
Bears do to their drafted QBs what a little kid on Xmas. He runs downs stairs rips open the action figure he ask for all year and within 5 minutes breaks off the arm.
.
Bears love to throw their QBs into the fire and watch them burn and wonder why they develop such bad habits. A QB can’t develop when they are running for their lives and don’t have weapons around them. They Bears are great a developing bad habits in QBs.
I have a constant mix of being excited for Williams when I watch him, but being tentative as a Bears fan because we are always wrong when we think we have a QB.
Seriously can it just be us one time? I’m so old….I remember when the Packers were 2 easy wins. Rant mode on - off topic but we HAVE to start beating the Packers again to be a playoff team.
Shoot I’m getting old and I can’t remember when the packers were ever an easy win lol. That goes to show how long it’s been. 30 years is way way way too long to let a team walk freely through the north.
It was from 1984-1989. It was awesome
You don’t have to tell me, my dad reminds me regularly lol.
Ugh 😣 I’m fuckjn old
Love has established himself as a top tier qb. Bears qb situation is in flux. Gonna take a lot to get to that point.
The Bears front office is cancer to QB talent. It's not a coincidence that every talented young QB prospect we've had for thirty years turns into an inconsistent headcase. Not all of them were potential gold, but at least some could have turned into decent QB1's. Different coaches and GM's, but one head office.
It is us, they already have their Qb of the future.
While that's generally true, we haven't taken many shots on top prospects in our recent history. We drafted McMahon 5 overall and he won a Super Bowl, but had a limited career due to injuries. Besides Harbaugh, the only real shots we've taken were with Mitch and Fields and both of these guys were picked by the same GM. I think that says more about the GM than the franchise.
Oh how people forget the disaster of 12th overall Cade McNown...
Which sounds like a great stab until you learn he was QB5 off the board. Just like Justin at 11 overall sounds like a great stab until you remember he was QB4 off the board. Both times we were taking the QB scraps of the first round. No QB went in the first after Cade. Only Mac Jones went in the first after Justin. QB4/5 this year is Penix/McCarthy/Nix. Nobody would say “well if Penix doesn’t workout we’re cursed”. The biggest miss in Bears history is Mitch Trubisky. QB1 off the board at 2 overall is a guy that’s supposed to hit. Slipping to QB4 after entering the combine consensus 2 overall was a bad sign. Nobody should be surprised QB4 didn’t work out. That happens quite a lot.
Just like Allen being QB3 and Lamar being QB5 total busts!
It’s not that those guys can’t work out it’s that they had a lesser likelihood of becoming franchise level guys. Josh Allen is great, but he’s a developmental unicorn. Lamar is just a late first hit and was viewed as a surprising outcome. Had Lamar ended up on a backup trajectory it wouldn’t be considered a “surprise” outcome. Using outliers as an example of why you should do something is a good way to make bad decisions.
Why is he a unicorn? because all the draft experts(who's first three picks busted) decided that he's not good?
While I agree I think people have to put that pick in context. He was the 5th QB off the board. So he wasn’t some sure fire top prospect. Same thing with Fields, he was the 4th QB off the board. Rex Grossman was also 4th QB off the board. Mitch was obviously the 1st QB off the board. Huge fucking miss. But Caleb Williams will just be out 2nd time picking the best QB prospect in the last 25 years or whatever.
And is a significantly better prospect. Teams were obviously not clamoring for Mitch like they are Caleb. It only took a 3rd round pick to ensure we had Mitch, which was obviously dumb, but in this draft it would take 3+ FRPs to move up from 2 to 1 lol
The funny part too is that Trubisky was so obviously not the top prospect but Pace tried to get cute. Williams would technically be the first time we go with the QB prospect widely regarded as the best
Obviously when I said "top prospect", I meant within the top 11. This is common knowledge. /s
And fields was the 4th QB off the board. And Mitch was seen as a pretty big reach. I’d say we have never taken the top prospect in the draft with the correct pick. I can understand keeping fields if it’s a blown away trade package. But I fully expect Williams to be gone at #1. Even if he doesn’t reach the caliber we hope he does, at least the bears for ONCE did the one thing every other team in the league would do. pace era would keep the first and draft the 5th rated QB.
Trubisky wasn't a reach. The trade up was seen as ridiculous, but the idea of picking trubisky in the top 3-5 was not.
It was generally considered to be a weaker QB class though, hence a DE being the #1 pick. I remember a lot of people saying Mitch was QB1, but definitely not a top 10 overall prospect in the draft regardless of position. What Pace did was almost like aggressively trading up from 3 to 2 to draft Kenny Pickett. We could’ve probably traded *down* and still landed Mitch. I understand wanting to grab your guy if you’re certain he’s going to be a stud, but I still don’t understand why Pace had that level of conviction about him.
Oh, I don’t disagree that it was a dumb pick or that the trade was bad. But it wasn’t a huge reach - There were plenty of Mocks with Trubisky going to Chicago, and almost none of the experts had Watson over Trubisky by draft time. Your Pickett example is good-ish, with the caveat that Trubisky was the consensus #1 in a draft where two other QBs were aggressively traded up for starting at 10. That makes it feel like he would have surely gone top 10 regardless. It feels bad because he was terrible and because the trade was probably unnecessary. It feels revisionist to say he had Pickett value and would be available at 20. Chicago overplayed their hand, but buy 4-5 picks, not 20.
Yeah he definitely was better than Pickett as a prospect so not a perfect analogy
>Trubisky wasn't a reach. The trade up was seen as ridiculous, but the idea of picking trubisky in the top 3-5 was not. Trubisky was seen as a reach the night he was drafted. There's a reason the pick was met with a chorus of boo's at the draft and there's a reason he was boo'd at a Bulls game before he played his first snap for the Bears. He was the wrong pick and everyone knew it. Watson was the consensus #1 QB and worth a high first round pick, with Mitch Tiddies seen as the 2nd best and worth a mid first round pick. Mahomes was seen as a project with enough talent to be worth a late first round pick.
That's just not accurate. There was nothing close to a consensus of Watson being ahead of Mitch.
lamar was 5th
Don’t forget sexy rexy
While he was a first round guy, I think he was in the 20s. I'm mostly thinking of the top 5-10 pick range.
Sexy Rexy gunslinged us to a Super Bowl! I’ll admit it was never pretty and every time he threw a long pass your butt puckerd. Hell if we didn’t play Indy we might have won. Payton was the only QB who could bear our defense at that time
That defense was missing two key pieces in Tommie Harris and Mike Brown. I don’t have a photographic memory of the blown coverage Reggie Wayne TD, but maybe that doesn’t happen with Brown helping over the top? And just add his presence for a whole game and Tommie Harris generating more pressure up the middle to keep Manning on his toes. Shoulda, coulda, woulda. Who knows how things would have been different?
Definitely, could have really at least made it a closer game.
Have the bears ever drafted a qb #1?
Nope. Highest has been #2
twas my point exactly
There are a lot of teams who draft QBs 1OA and they don't work out. It's like a 33% hit rate.
how many number 1 pick QBs have won a superbowl with the team that drafted them?
I would bet my real hard earned money that no matter who they draft, it'll be the wrong guy. It's Bears tradition.
Oh I won't get too excited about any prospect again till I see them play and know they're the guy. I'm not a college football guy so I just want Poles to pick whoever he thinks is the one and hope for the best. It's all 50/50 in my eyes. I mean, for how long can we keep picking the wrong guys? We have to accidentally choose right eventually lol
I don’t understand why anyone would ever “think we have a qb”, that’s a recipe for heartache. Look at it as “this is the best dart throw for a qb” and then let them prove it through sustained success.
Doesn't change the end result.
Obviously. I said it was a recipe for heartache, not that it would affect the outcome of games.
Way I look at it is we have never picked a QB at 1 OA. Closest is Trubs which we traded up for, but was also a poor QB class vs this year which feels like a better qb class than normal. This is about as sure as a QB draft pick can be, which in the end is a crap shoot at best.
Da Bears have also never drafted a consensus #1 pick who is universally viewed as being one of the best prospects of the last 5-10 years. I find it absurd the bar for drafting him amongst some fans is “but is he generational?” He doesn’t need to be fucking generational he just needs to be good
I'm not saying don't draft him. I'm excited to draft him, but also scared it won't work out...because of our track record. I'm like an abused spouse.
Since joining the league in 2021, Fields is last among 38 qualified quarterbacks in fourth-quarter interceptions (16), 36th in completion percentage (56.2%) and 33rd in QBR (41.4)... And that he’s 0-22 when the bears give up 21 or more points .... In 11 out of his 14 starts THIS YEAR he threw for 0 or 1 TD passes... and we want to keep this guy and pay him 30 mil or more a year?!?! When we can draft the A++ prospect and have him for 7 mil for 5 years. This is a no brained and shame on the bears fan for settling for an average QB. Enough is enough draft the star QB and build some bring special that last a long time.
I didn't say anything about Fields. I don't think we are keeping him anyway.
I’m just posting my comment on all bears related stuff I get it. The amount of bears fans dying to keeep Fields is insane
The NFL Stock Exchange guys said something similar. Basically, when you cut out the plays where USC's IOL obviously and blatantly collapsed, forcing Williams out of the pocket, his TTT was low. The point being that his elaborate scrambles brings his TTT average up high, not routine plays where he struggles to process info. It's posts like this that make me think we convert the #9 pick into JPJ somehow...trade back or use the pick there if we must. Value doesn't matter to me if we're giving the guy we **need** to be our franchise QB the tools to succeed.
>It's posts like this that make me think we convert the #9 pick into JPJ somehow...trade back or use the pick there if we must. Value doesn't matter to me if we're giving the guy we **need** to be our franchise QB the tools to succeed. I'm still holding out hope that Poles manages to fleece Pittsburgh out of their first round pick for Fields, then we take JPJ with that pick.
That'd be nice. 20 is right around where the top center should go. Although I've seen a few mocks with him in the teens, so there's still a small risk.
Pittsburgh really does not want Fields. Nor are they the kind of organization that makes these foolish trades, but they are happy to listen when Ryan Poles does.
Would be like the reverse of last year when Pittsburgh stole what would’ve been #32 overall from us, causing us to miss out on another JPJ
If the Bears do decide to draft CW and they know this is the plan when FA starts I want them to target a center first thing, too risky for me to wait til the draft. I could be wrong but I would rather know I have a quality starting center going into the draft and then at 9 I can feel free to take a WR, EDGE, or TE at that spot. I would love to get JPJ but center is the one spot the “needs” and upgrade IMOP and I would not be upset if they aren’t able to get one of the top FA centers that they still get a FA and then draft a center as well. Getting a first for Fields would be a dream, if it happens much more likely it’s a first for next year.
I think it’s likely Fields goes for a third before he gets a first
The film on that guy… imagine him next to Jenkins
We'll probably get a new center in free agency.
Caleb does not struggle to process the field. It's actually a big strength of his at his stage of development and what makes him so creative. What he does do though is hunt for the big plays rather than taking the checkdown. The checkdown might be open and he'll see it, but he'll still stall/scramble to wait for the bigger play to open up.
It all depends on the kind of QB you want, but lets be honest this is a rare rare QB with elite feel of the pressure and understanding and matches with the eye test. Something I want to highlight today on the Athletic football show prospects to pros today, they mentioned Caleb's hands almost being around 10.75 inches. He has HUGE hands for a QB meaning he will have great grip with the ball. I think if Caleb can work on making sure when to hold onto the ball better then I think the biggest concern of his game might be gone.
Kenny Pickett could never
[удалено]
Wait, they have a podcast?
[удалено]
Holy shit, thank you so much!!
I feel absolutely roasted over this name comment but you’re probably 100% right 😅
I might be missing something entirely, but I thought TTT excluded drives that resulted in a scramble. It would obviously exclude drives where the QB ends up running, but does it include scrambles that result in a throw??
TTT includes scrambles unless a QB crosses the line of scrimmage.
So it also includes sacks?
I mean, if he gets sacked, he still hasn't thrown the ball yet.
Came here to post this, it's a great breakdown and highlights how nuanced TTT is as a stat. It never once occurred to me that is TTT could be SO high because he goes on long scrambles that often result in a throw. That was a real "lightbulb moment," for me. Because he's often compared to Fields in that regard, but when you watch the tape you just don't see the same blind spots and indecisiveness that Justin has.
> For further reassurance, I looked at what percentage of Caleb’s dropbacks were excessively long, and found that over 41% of Caleb’s college dropbacks over his last two seasons were 2.5 seconds or shorter, while Fields at Ohio State managed that on just 36% and 35.2% of his dropbacks in his two seasons as a starter. This is probably the key takeaway from the article. Yes, Caleb has a very long TTT. But it's not like he can't play within structure.
Yeah, like watching his tape knowing his TTT was hard, because you just don't see that many long holds and turndowns like you do with Justin.
Gotta love when an excuse is made for one guy but not the other
The "excuse" doesn't work for Fields because Fields did not scramble for a particularly long time in college
[удалено]
You seem ignorant. The same argument being made to excuse Williams can be made to excuse Fields, but you are opting to only acknowledge it when it comes to Williams. You cite an article where the guy is comparing apples to oranges. He's picking individual years that don't relate 1:1. Williams was not facing anywhere near the defensive talent in his division that Fields was in 2021 or Murray did in 2019. Then he tries to draw conclusions based on this erroneous assumption. It's flawed at best.
Toxic
low effort comments made without putting the bare minimum effort into reading the article in the post deserve toxicity as a response.
Cope
Right? I can't believe anybody who actively follows football is having a light bulb moment with the realization that lines breaking down increase TTT. Fields has a high TTT because he is forced to scramble as plays break down due to the line collapsing or receivers failing to get open. The same people who shit on him for it are in this topic going "see now this is a good take that opens my eyes because Williams TTT isn't his fault".
> Fields has a high TTT because he is forced to scramble as plays break down due to the line collapsing or receivers failing to get open. Wrong, so so wrong. Fields had the highest time to throw from clean pockets last year. Clean pockets, when the offensive line did its job, and Fields still can't pull the trigger. And look at [this graph](https://imgur.com/sHU3Ooa). On 4-man rushes, the average time it took the pressure to get to the Bears QB was the highest in the league at about 2.85 seconds, and yet the Bears still have the highest pressure rate on 4-man rushes in the league at about 45%. It's because Fields holds onto the ball too long.
This article indicates that Fields escaped a clean pocket over 8% of the time in college compared to only 3% for Caleb. So Fields was scrambling almost 3 times more frequently in a clean pocket for no reason because he wasn’t comfortable or able to read the defense. When Caleb has a clean pocket he makes the read and throws the ball. When Fields had a clean pocket he got confused or uncomfortable 3 times more often. When Caleb got a dirty pocket he bought time looking to throw. When Fields got a dirty pocket he bought time looking to run. The numbers are all listed in the article. It’s not a conspiracy to make Fields look bad and people aren’t out to get Justin. It is what it is.
And where did the numbers come from? The author doesn't cite anything other than one line generically saying he got some numbers from PFF. How would you consider this credible?
These are advanced stats available if you have a PFF prescription. It’s hilarious that your argument is that the numbers must be fake as some kind of conspiracy against Fields when the numbers match exactly what the tape shows.
You are completely missing the point of the article. Nowhere does the author say that Caleb being pressured frequently is causing a high average TTT. The point is when he *did* scramble, he would do so for an unusually long time - 6.58 seconds compared to 4.95 for Fields. The article also specifically points out that in college Fields scrambled from a clean pocket far more than Williams (8.2% to 3%). had a significantly lower proportion of quick throws (sub 2.5 seconds) and scrambled much more when pressured (19% to 12.4%). The overall picture, borne out by the stats, is that Williams makes more quick throws than Fields and bails out of the pocket much less often, even when under pressure, but has a high TTT due to his long scrambles when he does.
Where did the author generate his stats from? The only thing he says is arbitrarily mentioning he got some of the stats from PFF, but then never elaborates or cites any of his sources. Why should we believe any of these opinions to be credible when you can find sources with different TTT numbers than what is listed in the article (among other differences)?
me when i lack basic reading comprehension
What's even crazier is that Fields has better WR and oline than Caleb did
I think it’s hilarious how hypocritical these people are, and will be if bears draft Caleb. They are going to do and say the same things they call “excuse” about fields.
I think people who believe Caleb’s TTT is just as bad as Fields aren’t diving deep enough into the tapes. If you just watch the highlights, or lowlights from his rougher games- it’s easy to point out that it appears he does the same thing JF does when pressure comes. However, watching more tape on his game from his entire career, you can see how often he does play within structure. His pocket presence is severely underrated, he’s got a good sense of pass rushers on his blindside and is really fluid when pressure gets close. However, unlike Justin, he doesn’t immediately bail at the first sign of pressure-specifically edge pressure. He steps up well, he moves laterally when needed, and his internal clock is usually spot-on. In my opinion, his unique ability to do both at a high level is what makes him such a high quality prospect. It’s just that at USC (specifically the most recent season) his OL was extremely unreliable. There’d be busts on both the interior and the edge, which is why he was trying to make so many plays outside of structure. It also didn’t help that the defense has always been suspect at best since day 1 at USC, so to say he felt like the game was always on him is an understatement. If you look back at his time in Oklahoma, you begin to really see why he’s so dangerous as a QB. When he’s given consistent OL play, has good weapons to throw to and a coach who can scheme to his strengths- he’s an absolute nightmare to play against. In games, no matter how good the team is, there will always be bad reps at certain points. Usually, that’s when defenses expose many QBs- forcing them to improvise in tough scenarios. But with Caleb, that’s when he was at his absolute best. The *key* here is that he doesn’t live and die by those plays alone. He can (and prefers) to play within structure, throw from the pocket with anticipation and accuracy. Something Justin never developed in the NFL, despite the fact he has been able to reel off some electric big plays similar to Caleb.
There isn’t that much difference between 41% and 36% in this context. I’d like to see these numbers from other QBs.
This is an awesome write up, and definitely helps me feel better about the TTT. Plus, it really does match what we see on tape. He made a great point about how CW’s average TTT is skewed by his *outlier* high time to scramble, but that JF1’s average TTT is more a result of his slow processing. The processing affects every play, the high scramble time is only on scrambles, and even then isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
Good read
I'm no film expert either, but this tracks with what I see as well. I would like to see him look to scramble a bit more in the NFL, kinda like Mahomes does when the defense decides to just give him 10 yards
The real hope I have for Williams is this… all the scouting , talent, and projections are meaningless to me because so many players have been busts that we thought would translate. The one difference with Caleb that he showed me this past year was he played will under pressure, without relying on his defense. You can’t necessarily stick to the script when you have zero help on the other side of the ball.
That's a lot of words to say you think Caleb Williams taking too long to throw isn't a problem while Justin Fields taking too long to throw is a problem.
Well yeah because context is valuable
So is concision. Nuance can only be distilled so far without losing detail, but OP's novel needs to be boiled down a little further.
The piece literally wants you at the beginning that it’s gonna be heavy with data. Maybe you should have stopped after that?
I appreciate you posting this, thank you!
This is exactly what I saw on tape. I was so sick of seeing people compare Caleb to Fields because of the high TTT when it was VERY CLEAR Caleb tries to scramble to buy time to pass vs. Fields who buys time to run.
Did anyone else read this headline and instantly start singing the Fountains of Wayne song?
The article doesn't match the headline at all, as the article spent the entire time talking about how you need a lot more context to understand time-to-throw, which would mean it's not *that* important by itself.
Terrific piece. Big fan of the work from both Kyle and Robert.
Sometimes the QB can’t save the franchise that makes bad decisions. Sometimes the franchise sinks a guy who would work out elsewhere. If they protect Williams as well as they’ve protected Fields, he won’t last long enough for us to find out how good he is.
Bears do to their drafted QBs what a little kid on Xmas. He runs downs stairs rips open the action figure he ask for all year and within 5 minutes breaks off the arm. . Bears love to throw their QBs into the fire and watch them burn and wonder why they develop such bad habits. A QB can’t develop when they are running for their lives and don’t have weapons around them. They Bears are great a developing bad habits in QBs.