Fields’ Miss, Herbert’s Dash, Roquan’s Blow Up Moment, and Other Bears Bullets

Oct 14, 2022

The combination of a late game, late arrival, a late night of writing, and a bit of discombobulation in the morning has led to a late round of Bullets. Happy brunching.

This play was the talk of the group chat last night. And I can’t imagine I was the only one in this situation:

Justin Fields misses Ryan Griffin? #nfl #chicagobears #JustinFields pic.twitter.com/MpdrsWq1l9
— Dagger Highlights (@DaggerHighlight) October 14, 2022

And I think Keyshawn Johnson explains my side of the argument best:

Lots of heat last night on Justin Fields on the incomplete pass to Ryan Griffin in the Endzone.

Keyshawn Johnson puts the blame on the TE and not Fields.

Thoughts? pic.twitter.com/7bE2xFwP7R— Bears Nation (2-4) (@BearsNationCHI) October 14, 2022

Could Justin Fields’ throw to Ryan Griffin been better? Yes. Absolutely. Fields himself says as much:

“He probably could’ve run a bit more, but I’ve got to hit that. I’m an NFL quarterback. I’ve got to hit that.”

-Justin Fields on missed TD to Ryan Griffin— Alex Shapiro (@AlexShapiroNBCS) October 14, 2022

But my contention was – as is Keyshawn’s – is that a better player makes that play. Again, Fields’ throw could’ve (and should’ve!) been better. But the margin for error is zero when you’re throwing to players like Griffin, Ihmir Smith-Marsette, Equanimeous St. Brown, Dante Pettis, etc.

Wouldn’t that have been a nice place to deploy Cole Kmet? Just wondering.

I hate how these moments are amplified mostly because your team doesn’t get to the red zone enough. And frankly, doesn’t run enough plays to where you feel like you’re evaluating every Fields throw like it’s the last one because you’re not quite sure when the next throw is coming.

And yet, the Bears were driving deep a bunch last night. It’s just that they stalled out all the dang time. This stat would’ve kept me up last night had I seen it in real time:

Tonight the Bears had:

– 61-yd drive to the 5, INT
– 69-yd drive to the 1, turnover on downs
– 61-yd drive to the 4, turnover on downs

No other NFL team in the last 30 years has had 3 drives in one game where they drove 60+ yards to the 5-yard line or closer but scored 0 points— OptaSTATS (@OptaSTATS) October 14, 2022

When you lay it out like that, it’s almost as if the team was designed to play this way.

I’ll say this about the team design: It should remind us that there is one more piece of teardown that needs to happen. And that is when it comes to older ideologies. These Bears are the embodiment of meatball “run the ball, play defense, and let the rest of the chips fall where they may” ideology. This team is popping off for 5.2 years per run (7th highest per-carry average), 170.8 yards per game (that’s the third most), and generates little to no offense (their 93 points scored is 29th). A defense with notable holes at every level plays well enough to hold the line (13th in points, 16th in yards) until the dam finally breaks (the two second-half TDs allowed have both been opponent game-winners after the Bears took a fourth-quarter lead). And they’re not winning games. It’s almost as if formulas from the 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s don’t work as well in the modern game. Adjustments must be made.

Punts on the plus-side of the field drive me wild. And not in a good way. This cowardly punt had me looking like the Arthur fist meme:

Definition of cowardly. https://t.co/KFmN6yPaNk
— Bleacher Nation Bears (@BN_Bears) October 14, 2022

When you have so few opportunities to score, you need to either (1) be more aggressive in decision-making when you get the ball across the 50 or (2) have your punter be better at directional kicking.

What happened to the aggressive nature we saw in the coaching staff last week? Don’t tell me we’ll only see it when the team is down 18 points. If that’s the case, we might have bigger issues on our hands.

For what it’s worth, it wasn’t ALL bad last night:

We’ll always remember our first. pic.twitter.com/kI5NYjjzPu https://t.co/Ww45WntJMb
— Bleacher Nation Bears (@BN_Bears) October 14, 2022

Justin Fields using his cadence to create a free play, then drop a dot in the end zone for a touchdown is the stuff we’ve been dreaming our favorite quarterback would do for years. Especially since our long-time tormentor Aaron Rodgers has been needling us with that play for decades.

Also? Did Amazon just miss this play altogether? Jeff Bezos didn’t pay a small fortune for the Thursday Night Football to miss the game’s first touchdown like this.

This was magic and I’ll be heading to the .gif machine to make it later today:

Come for @justnfields escaping the pressure, stay for the majestic slide 👏#WASvsCHI on Prime Video
Also available on NFL+ https://t.co/0NxrLlxiBS pic.twitter.com/pwJrhkYLVn— NFL (@NFL) October 14, 2022

This Khalil Herbert run made me squeal like a kid:

.@JuiceHerbert gets YAC

📺: #WASvsCHI on @NFLonPrime pic.twitter.com/es8k3ZC0L7
— Chicago Bears (@ChicagoBears) October 14, 2022

Khalil Herbert (64-yd run)

🔹 Distance Traveled: 99.1 yards
🔹 Expected Rushing Yards: 6
🔹 RYOE: +58 (career-high)

*Most distance traveled on a non-TD run this season & 3rd-most over the last six seasons (since 2017)#WASvsCHI | #DaBears pic.twitter.com/QU99XpaqED— Next Gen Stats (@NextGenStats) October 14, 2022

Herbert isn’t RB1 just yet. But his play continues to make a strong case for an increased snap load.

Jaquan Brisker making a splash play out of the gate had me GOING:

Brizzy on the blitz 🔥

📺: #WASvsCHI on @NFLonPrime pic.twitter.com/9tArYQCHmB
— Chicago Bears (@ChicagoBears) October 14, 2022

This was LOL worthy:

Bears OL Sam Mustipher with an ELITE flop 😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/FYjJG2xf1w
— Field Yates (@FieldYates) October 14, 2022

But this was not:

no flag here pic.twitter.com/SyD4He4U3Y
— Warren Sharp (@SharpFootball) October 14, 2022

I don’t know how the refs missed the blatant defensive pass interference that came on this play. You can’t have that. Not after what was called on Jaylon Johnson and Kyler Gordon earlier in the game.

And it was still so painfully close to being a spectacular, miraculous grab:

https://twitter.com/BearsNoContext/status/1580756425910779905?s=20&t=FL0GC47x7qF-HbkHDvtUvQ

I know better than to overreact to one play, but is going to be very difficult to discuss extending Roquan Smith in this present moment after watching this live and on replay:

YOOOOO what a block from Carson 🥞

📺 @NFLonPrime #WASvsCHI pic.twitter.com/bujvVaCZRM
— Washington Commanders (@Commanders) October 14, 2022

Well, at least the defense didn’t come out of the gate sleep-walking. (Sun-Times)

A screen shot is worth a thousand words:

Justin Fields gave his all. pic.twitter.com/GGUU94YyZh
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) October 14, 2022

If this screen shot was art, I’d call it “Justin Fields does a good thing, but I’m not sure if he’ll be alive to talk about it.” pic.twitter.com/OzTDLhd3Is— Funky Cold Luda (@lcm1986) October 14, 2022

Again, I haven’t gone back to re-watch the broadcast last night. So I’ll put this out there wondering if the broadcast showed as many of these slow-to-get-up moments Fields had after getting drilled:

Justin Fields has been drilled on each of the last two plays. A little slow to get up. 😬 pic.twitter.com/Zb9Ll41xkj
— Bleacher Nation Bears (@BN_Bears) October 14, 2022

I’m sharing these tweets in tandem in hopes that there are no overreactions (as there were last night when I put it out there in the first place):

It’s a datapoint. It’s not the be all, end all. It’s something for us to dissect and consider as part of the big picture. That is all.— Bleacher Nation Bears (@BN_Bears) October 14, 2022

In our evaluation of Fields, we need to take the good and the bad into consideration. We know it won’t all be sunshines and rainbows. But we also know that things won’t be as bad as what is on the other side of that equation. In the end, let’s take everything into consideration, sort it all out, and hash out what it all means in a productive manner.

A reminder that George McCaskey is just a fan. One who also happens to be team chairman. I wonder what he was thinking watching this last night:

https://twitter.com/LFC_Steph/status/1580702228951597057?s=20&t=sBTZRfvhdUvV7OUuHxxFTg

Stuff like this would keep me tuning into Thursday Night Football every week. Marshawn Lynch is a treasure:

https://twitter.com/NFLonPrime/status/1580769595320778752?s=20&t=FL0GC47x7qF-HbkHDvtUvQ

It is disturbing that yet another lawsuit is coming Deshaun Watson’s way:

The NFL says the latest lawsuit against Deshaun Watson doesn't impact his standing. Watson is serving an 11-game suspension. https://t.co/RtJf0pSwXN— AP NFL (@AP_NFL) October 14, 2022

Last night was a double-dip in the “L” column for Chicago’s teams:

Golden Knights 1 — #Blackhawks 0: 3 ⭐s, Key Takeaways https://t.co/plNdMa0U2B pic.twitter.com/bLS6IektCR
— Bleacher Nation Blackhawks (@BN_Blackhawks) October 14, 2022

written by

Luis C. Medina

Luis C. Medina, who you can find on Twitter at lcm1986, has been covering the Chicago Bears at Bleacher Nation since 2017. Since then, he has written about 3 head coaches, 5 play-callers, and 11 starting quarterbacks. Previously, Luis wrote about the Cubs and MLB at BN (2015-16) and worked in the Chicago Tribune sports department (2011-16). He also co-hosted a Cubs postgame show, Outside the Ivy, in 2019.

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Fields’ Miss, Herbert’s Dash, Roquan’s Blow Up Moment, and Other Bears Bullets

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