Next Gen Stat Passing Scores

[Smithers]

15 hours ago, LinvilleGorge said:

When your entire passing game is built around the simplest throws a QB is asked to make them you expect high efficiency but you're running that offense because you can't trust your QB.

We took a few deep shots last game - the game plan isn’t entirely conservative.  It doesn’t help that our receivers never get open 

[RJK]

All these analytics and stats these days are so misleading. Numbers lie if you know how to manipulate the data 

[MasterAwesome]

2 hours ago, ForJimmy said:

Teddy was on par with us as he has been on every other team he has played for.  Decent QB rating, decent yards, hell he got Robbie over 1000 and DJ (which he usually gets).  Most yards he has ever had, 2nd most TDs, highest completion %, 2nd highest yards per attempt, and 3rd highest rating at 92.1.  

So you have post post injury Baker and Sam playing bad with this core. Baker looked decent his first game on that last drive with LAR, but he has already come back down to Earth against GB.  

Keep trying to make excuses why Darnold isn't a good starting QB.  It's just comical at this point.  So you are low on Fields who has waaaaaay less weapons and less of on OL, but high on Darnold.  Seems logical....

Tbh both the Darnold camp and the Fields camp tend to overhype their guy and make a lot of excuses.  For Fields, it's definitely more warranted because he's only in his second year, but they are still excuses nonetheless.  It's just ironic seeing the Fields camp bring up things like Darnold's passing chart and highlighting how the team is trying to limit his passing and play him conservatively, while ignoring how that has been exactly the Bears' approach with Fields so far lol.  There's a reason why Fields has the lowest passing attempts per game of any starter this season despite the Bears being 3-11 and constantly playing from behind.

Don't get me wrong, Fields >> Darnold...but it's his rushing ability that gives him the significant edge, not his passing ability.  It's actually kinda hilarious how there tends to be almost a direct inverse correlation between how much you love Darnold and hate Fields and vice versa, meanwhile as passers they're almost carbon copies lol.  I truly don't understand how people can have such opposing contradictory views about one over the other as passers.  I do however understand how you can be much more optimistic about Fields over Darnold because of their relative time spent in the league (which is my position), but that doesn't tend to be the argument - the argument tends to be Fields has already "arrived" and is a clear franchise QB while Darnold is a bust and not even back-up level.

[ForJimmy]

3 minutes ago, MasterAwesome said:

Tbh both the Darnold camp and the Fields camp tend to overhype their guy and make a lot of excuses.  For Fields, it's definitely more warranted because he's only in his second year, but they are still excuses nonetheless.  It's just ironic seeing the Fields camp bring up things like Darnold's passing chart and highlighting how the team is trying to limit his passing and play him conservatively, while ignoring how that has been exactly the Bears' approach with Fields so far lol.  There's a reason why Fields has the lowest passing attempts per game of any starter this season despite the Bears being 3-11 and constantly playing from behind.

Don't get me wrong, Fields >> Darnold...but it's his rushing ability that gives him the significant edge, not his passing ability.  It's actually kinda hilarious how there tends to be almost a direct inverse correlation between how much you love Darnold and hate Fields and vice versa, meanwhile as passers they're almost carbon copies lol.  I truly don't understand how people can have such opposing contradictory views about one over the other as passers.  I do however understand how you can be much more optimistic about Fields over Darnold because of their relative time spent in the league (which is my position), but that doesn't tend to be the argument - the argument tends to be Fields has already "arrived" and is a clear franchise QB while Darnold is a bust and not even back-up level.

I don't think anyone thinks Fields is an elite passer yet.  Fields hype is excitement about his potential.  He has the Bear's anemic offense looking respectable (their defense is another story and he can't close out games yet).  Our weakness is Sam/passing game and the Bears only strength is arguably their second year QB's explosive playmaking ability.  Fields is suppose to look like this and get better as the season progresses which he is.  It's really not even comparable at this point, but anyone making excuses for Darnold's lack of weapons and then claiming Fields sucks is questionable at best on their QB judgement at least to me....  For a while Fields was rolling with 2 5th round tackles and Moony as his top WR.  

The easiest way to tell is imagine if Fields and Darnold (who is) became FAs somehow after this season.  You would have a line of teams for Fields and teams looking for a backup might consider Sam after 5 years and 2 teams of lackluster success.  Honestly I have nothing against Darnold, but hearing people wanting to roll with him next season seems crazy to me unless they are only wanting him as a cheap backup (which appears to be his ceiling after 5 years).  It why we are looking at drafting a QB and the Bears are looking at building around their promising young QB.  

[Wundrbread33]

It’s easy to poo on Darnold. Low hanging fruit. 
 

But regarding “what have you done for me lately,” he’s played his best mistake free football of his career. His numbers aren’t crazy (McAdoo wouldn’t allow that anyway) but I’m most impressed by the way he has handled pressure. Taking a sack when needed. Using his legs to buy time while keeping his eyes down field. Throwing the ball away. 
 

Happy for the guy. He’s contributing to this teams success right now. 

[Basbear]

4 hours ago, RJK said:

All these analytics and stats these days are so misleading. Numbers lie if you know how to manipulate the data 

My guy Charles Barkley has said a few times - "Good stats doesnt make a good team". its true...

 

[Bear Hands]

I think people need to brace for Corral not even sniffing QB2 on this team.  There's a chance he's like Hackenburg level.  Not saying that's the reality, but it's far more likely the reality than not with 3rd rounders. And yeah, good situation or not, he looked way far behind developmentally from what I expected.  Just prepare thyselves for this not even being teased to workout folks.

I do see a possibility Darnold is retained in some capacity but he's not our long term answer.  If this is how he'd play as relief, I am actually totally cool with him as a backup compared to some of these other situations I've seen around the league like Rypien, McSorley, etc. 

Answer is OFF the roster.

 

[MasterAwesome]

3 hours ago, ForJimmy said:

I don't think anyone thinks Fields is an elite passer yet.  Fields hype is excitement about his potential.  He has the Bear's anemic offense looking respectable (their defense is another story and he can't close out games yet).  Our weakness is Sam/passing game and the Bears only strength is arguably their second year QB's explosive playmaking ability.  Fields is suppose to look like this and get better as the season progresses which he is.  It's really not even comparable at this point, but anyone making excuses for Darnold's lack of weapons and then claiming Fields sucks is questionable at best on their QB judgement at least to me....  For a while Fields was rolling with 2 5th round tackles and Moony as his top WR.  

The easiest way to tell is imagine if Fields and Darnold (who is) became FAs somehow after this season.  You would have a line of teams for Fields and teams looking for a backup might consider Sam after 5 years and 2 teams of lackluster success.  Honestly I have nothing against Darnold, but hearing people wanting to roll with him next season seems crazy to me unless they are only wanting him as a cheap backup (which appears to be his ceiling after 5 years).  It why we are looking at drafting a QB and the Bears are looking at building around their promising young QB.  

That is a perfectly reasonable take, there's nothing in there I disagree with.  I don't want to roll with Darnold next year but I'm fine with him as a back-up, which for some reason is a controversial take.  But again I just find it funny that the specific pointed criticism aimed at Darnold in this thread is how the team doesn't trust him and has built its identity around handcuffing him in the passing game, which is true, but when it's coming from posters who I know are huge Fields fans, then it's a bit awkward.  I honestly wish the Bears would let him sling it more cause he's got a big talented arm.  Their season is over anyways, just let him loose.

[ForJimmy]

18 minutes ago, MasterAwesome said:

That is a perfectly reasonable take, there's nothing in there I disagree with.  I don't want to roll with Darnold next year but I'm fine with him as a back-up, which for some reason is a controversial take.  But again I just find it funny that the specific pointed criticism aimed at Darnold in this thread is how the team doesn't trust him and has built its identity around handcuffing him in the passing game, which is true, but when it's coming from posters who I know are huge Fields fans, then it's a bit awkward.  I honestly wish the Bears would let him sling it more cause he's got a big talented arm.  Their season is over anyways, just let him loose.

I think his OL is too bad at pass protection to let him pass too much. Getting drilled in the pocket is what tore Burrow’s ACL, and ended Cam’s career early. I get your point though, at some point he is going to have to pass more or he will never fully develop.

Yeah they are pretty much treating Sam like a project rookie QB who needs time to develop. The issue is it’s year 5 for him and he is making dumb money. If we had a rookie out there I wouldn’t hold our game plan against him. 

[Krovvy]

Sam has sucked for 5 years in the NFL, is on his second team, and somehow still gets the rookie pass.

Meanwhile fans here are criticizing Fields? What?

[mav1234]

1 hour ago, ForJimmy said:

Yeah they are pretty much treating Sam like a project rookie QB who needs time to develop. The issue is it’s year 5 for him and he is making dumb money. If we had a rookie out there I wouldn’t hold our game plan against him. 

Yeah this is why I'm not super bullish on Sam's recent play...looks good for a backup level but we're 5 years in and should be seeing more. Oh well.

[MasterAwesome]

3 hours ago, ForJimmy said:

I think his OL is too bad at pass protection to let him pass too much. Getting drilled in the pocket is what tore Burrow’s ACL, and ended Cam’s career early. I get your point though, at some point he is going to have to pass more or he will never fully develop.

Yeah they are pretty much treating Sam like a project rookie QB who needs time to develop. The issue is it’s year 5 for him and he is making dumb money. If we had a rookie out there I wouldn’t hold our game plan against him. 

Fair about Fields. I’ve caught stretches of Bears games here and there but I don’t watch them religiously like I do the Panthers. Incidentally, I saw that PFF rated the Bears as having a top 10 o-line but I saw some pushback articles wondering what the heck they were thinking so I’ll chalk that up to PFF being PFF. NextGen also has Fields leading the NFL with the highest Time to Throw out of any QB though, but I’m pretty sure that doesn’t factor in him evading rushers and extending plays so it’s a pretty flawed metric.

Regarding Darnold: I think we have to be nuanced and draw a distinction between a player and the coaches’ treatment of said player. You seem to be putting our lackluster game plan entirely on Darnold rather than considering that maybe our coaches could be mishandling the game plan/play calling. Obviously there is a correlation there, i.e. Darnold’s career performance has warranted a lack of trust, but at the same time that doesn’t mean running the ball on every 2nd and 11 and throwing swing passes to Shenault every other pass play is smart coaching. The Steelers completely shut down the run last week and we could only somewhat move the ball when Darnold was forced to actually throw it. If the coaches opened up the playbook more for Darnold last week it’s very possible he could have pressed and thrown some interceptions, but I’d prefer that over running Foreman up the gut for 1 yard every 1st and 2nd down. We clearly got out-coached and out-schemed last week.

It reminds me of when people used to criticize Gano when he played for us, saying “Gano sucks…Rivera doesn’t even trust him to kick anything beyond 50 yards” meanwhile it turns out hey Gano is actually one of the best distance kickers in the NFL. Or imagine holding Rhule’s decision to start Elflein over Bozeman against Bozeman rather than calling it out as a bad coaching decision. Coaches aren’t infallible beings; hell, we’re Panthers fans…questioning coaches is in our blood. You can say “oh that was Rivera and Rhule you’re talking about, they’re idiots” but I don’t think Wilks and McAdoo have done anything to earn our blind trust that they’re making the best decisions and putting together the best game plan week in and week out.

[ForJimmy]

7 minutes ago, MasterAwesome said:

Fair about Fields. I’ve caught stretches of Bears games here and there but I don’t watch them religiously like I do the Panthers. Incidentally, I saw that PFF rated the Bears as having a top 10 o-line but I saw some pushback articles wondering what the heck they were thinking so I’ll chalk that up to PFF being PFF. NextGen also has Fields leading the NFL with the highest Time to Throw out of any QB though, but I’m pretty sure that doesn’t factor in him evading rushers and extending plays so it’s a pretty flawed metric.

Regarding Darnold: I think we have to be nuanced and draw a distinction between a player and the coaches’ treatment of said player. You seem to be putting our lackluster game plan entirely on Darnold rather than considering that maybe our coaches could be mishandling the game plan/play calling. Obviously there is a correlation there, i.e. Darnold’s career performance has warranted a lack of trust, but at the same time that doesn’t mean running the ball on every 2nd and 11 and throwing swing passes to Shenault every other pass play is smart coaching. The Steelers completely shut down the run last week and we could only somewhat move the ball when Darnold was forced to actually throw it. If the coaches opened up the playbook more for Darnold last week it’s very possible he could have pressed and thrown some interceptions, but I’d prefer that over running Foreman up the gut for 1 yard every 1st and 2nd down. We clearly got out-coached and out-schemed last week.

It reminds me of when people used to criticize Gano when he played for us, saying “Gano sucks…Rivera doesn’t even trust him to kick anything beyond 50 yards” meanwhile it turns out hey Gano is actually one of the best distance kickers in the NFL. Or imagine holding Rhule’s decision to start Elflein over Bozeman against Bozeman rather than calling it out as a bad coaching decision. Coaches aren’t infallible beings; hell, we’re Panthers fans…questioning coaches is in our blood. You can say “oh that was Rivera and Rhule you’re talking about, they’re idiots” but I don’t think Wilks and McAdoo have done anything to earn our blind trust that they’re making the best decisions and putting together the best game plan week in and week out.

Yeah I saw that about them being ranked in the top 10. Probably because it’s metric based and they are good at run blocking, but as we mentioned not asked to pass block for obvious reasons? Not completely sure, PFF is hard to figure out sometimes. The funny thing is the following game against the Eagles they allowed 6 sacks and 6 extra QB hits. None of which PFF blamed Fields for… So 12 of his 27 pass attempts he was either hit or sacked. 27 is a higher passing attempt number (for Fields) but he is getting killed in the process.

https://www.bleachernation.com/bears/2022/12/21/that-bears-offensive-line-is-getting-yet-another-makeover/

On top of that the OL is getting shuffled again due to injuries…

Our staff definitely is bottom of the league. However I don’t know of many teams that would want Darnold stepping back and carving up defenses. He has had several OCs and has never shown he can read a defense. For what it’s worth Wilks trusted Baker and PJ over Sam. He could be a bad judge of talent, or he could see what most of the league has seen. Hell I think we were the only true bidders when he was made available by the Jets.

[MasterAwesome]

11 hours ago, ForJimmy said:

Yeah I saw that about them being ranked in the top 10. Probably because it’s metric based and they are good at run blocking, but as we mentioned not asked to pass block for obvious reasons? Not completely sure, PFF is hard to figure out sometimes. The funny thing is the following game against the Eagles they allowed 6 sacks and 6 extra QB hits. None of which PFF blamed Fields for… So 12 of his 27 pass attempts he was either hit or sacked. 27 is a higher passing attempt number (for Fields) but he is getting killed in the process.

https://www.bleachernation.com/bears/2022/12/21/that-bears-offensive-line-is-getting-yet-another-makeover/

On top of that the OL is getting shuffled again due to injuries…

Our staff definitely is bottom of the league. However I don’t know of many teams that would want Darnold stepping back and carving up defenses. He has had several OCs and has never shown he can read a defense. For what it’s worth Wilks trusted Baker and PJ over Sam. He could be a bad judge of talent, or he could see what most of the league has seen. Hell I think we were the only true bidders when he was made available by the Jets.

What do you mean by Wilks trusted Baker and PJ over Sam?  He literally cut Baker and currently has a healthy PJ sitting on the bench in favor of Darnold lol.  Do you mean he was more aggressive with them in the pass game?  If so, I don't know if you recall PJ's first start of the season against the Rams under Wilks, but it was quite possibly the most egregious lack of trust I've ever seen of any QB in my lifetime.  He had one completion beyond the line of scrimmage, and that was 1 yard out lol.  And if you recall the end of the first half, Wilks opted to go into half-time with all 3 timeouts instead of calling a timeout and letting PJ try to score with over a minute left and 2 timeouts.  They opened things up for PJ more in his second start against the Bucs, but I think we are seeing that same trend with Darnold as well from his first start to his second start (compare his passing charts between the two weeks).  Baker only had one start under Wilks and then subsequently was cut, so again not sure how you figure Wilks trusted him more.

Don't get me wrong, I sure as hell don't want our gameplan to be to let Sam Darnold sit back and try to carve up defenses.  I just think we can't be so one-dimensional like we are now.  We should definitely be a run-first team but still sprinkle in enough of a passing game to prevent the opposing team from just stacking the box on every play.  Especially if the run clearly isn't working, we can't be so stubborn to stick with it and put ourselves in 3rd and longs every drive.  I think CRA said it correctly: Wilks is part of that old-school ultra conservative Ron Rivera type philosophy that gets figured out very quickly.