Tom Thayer appeared on 670 the score for his regular Bears post-game analysis segment on Monday after the Bears’ 27-24 loss to the Atlanta Falcons and he shared his thoughts on QB1.
Tom Thayer came out swinging on Justin Fields, after a full week of Justin Fields MVP talk and the joy Bears fans have had over Fields finally being the answer at QB.
“Justin, he needs throwing reps, if Justin doesn’t scramble anymore the rest of the year I don’t care I want to see Justin throw the ball and trust his receivers and trust his vision his sight, and his understanding of the coverages he’s seeing.”
This is the most solid constructive criticism of Justin Fields as the quarterback of the Chicago Bears that we’ve heard from over the last month. While everyone at 670 the score has been celebrating Fields as the true coming of a franchise QB for the Chicago Bears, Tom Thayer made one of the most direct statements of criticism of Fields of the season.
Tom Thayer explicitly stated that he doesn’t care to see Fields scramble at all the rest of the season because Fields’ scrambling ability is entirely irrelevant to the Bears’ long-term chances at winning, making the playoffs, and winning a Super Bowl.
Tom Thayer then continued with the need for Justin Fields to develop,
“I’m against the amount of running that Justin is doing. Because you have to get an indication in the week of practice are you seeing the structure of the offense the way we’re calling the play… Because you can still go out and whether it’s looking at the tape of the game last week and see how many throws that you should have made that you didn’t make that were obvious open receivers to the play you called in the huddle.
The same thing happened today there were a couple of times where Justin should have thrown the ball to the receiver the design of the play he doesn’t throw the ball for some unknown reason and then he tucks the ball and runs.”
Tom Thayer is not holding back and is getting to the true reasons why everything we’ve seen from Justin Fields over the last month is an extremely bad development for the Bears’ long-term Super Bowl aspirations. This mode of play is simply not sustainable for any QB and yesterday was proof positive of that on two fronts. First, the last four weeks have taken a huge toll on Fields’ body, secondly, all of this freestyling within the offense isn’t going to help the Bears get to where they want to go.
“I just don’t think you can run and adlib offense in the NFL and get to the point where you want to be that’s winning the division getting into the playoffs and then getting into the Super Bowl.”
There was more within the post-game analysis segment that I’ll leave for you to listen to here. But it’s clear that Tom Thayer is one of the few analysts willing to come and criticize Justin Fields this way. Thayer is one of the few experts that is speaking to the truth of what we’ve seen from Fields over the last month. That despite him being fifth overall in the NFL in rushing, Fields should be better trying to be fifth overall in passing in the NFL.
All of this goes into exactly what I’ve been saying, it’s still far too early to anoint Justin Fields as the savior and the one that Bears fans have been hoping for and the one that will finally solve all of the QB problems in Chicago. There needs to be a focus on Fields as a passer, rather than a runner. Until Fields becomes that passer, the Bears aren’t going to get to the level they need to for long-term success.
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