Justin Fields breakdown [The Athletic] Ted Nguyen Justin Fields is this year’s most controversial quarterback entering the 2021 NFL Draft. Longtime scout Gil Brandt tweeted about where teams have Fields ranked and it’s quite the range: “Highest I’ve heard is top 5, lowest: Round 4.” What makes the subject of how to grade the former Ohio State quarterback so contentious among scouts? His physical abilities are off the charts. He has a rocket arm, he’s accurate, he’s big and tall, and he has elite athleticism. However, there are some who question his ability to process the game. Tony Paulin from Pro Footwork Network reported that a scout said, “He doesn’t process things as quickly as they want him to.” An NFL personnel man that I spoke with said, “(Fields) definitely needs to work on his drop and moving through progressions, but his speed and arm talent are almost fail-proof since he doesn’t have any bad character issues. High floor, you know what you’re getting. Fields is almost oversaturated and you’re looking for flaws.” Although there is validity to the idea that Fields needs to continue to develop in the mental aspect of the game, most college quarterbacks do, and I believe some of his perceived weaknesses are overblown and that there are enough examples on film of him processing the game well to believe he can continue to develop on the next level. Motion Despite popular belief, Fields doesn’t have an elongated throwing motion. His elbow doesn’t dip and his arm comes up efficiently. However, he does have a tendency to overstride into his throws, which slows down his overall delivery. This is a bad habit that is fixable with work — an issue that he has to clean up in the NFL. Usually, this sort of problem leads to a lot of sailed passes, but you don’t see that many of them with Fields — he’s one of the most accurate passers in his draft class. However, he can be a more efficient thrower with a shorter stride. He has plenty of arm strength, and there is no reason that he needs to stride as far as he does. Setting up with a wider base more consistently could help. Progressions There is a narrative that Fields is a “one-read” quarterback — whatever that means. Can he get better and faster moving from read to read at times? Yes. However, there are plenty of examples, especially in 2020, of Fields exhausting multiple progressions on plays. “Y-cross” is a staple concept in the Buckeyes offense that involves a full-field read. The diagram below is from Urban Meyer’s 2014 playbook, but Ohio State head coach Ryan Day was Meyer’s offensive coordinator from 2017-18 and still runs a lot of the same concepts. On the first play above, the fade and bubble to the bottom of the screen were Fields’ first reads. Some coaches teach their players to read these two routes together. The defense was in a two-deep shell to that side, and the corner and safety capped the routes. His next read was the crosser coming from across the field, but the middle linebacker dropped with good depth and collided with the route, taking it away. Fields’ third read was the “win-post.” The middle-of-the-field safety was influenced by the crosser and left the middle of the field wide open, so Fields unleashed a beautiful deep pass that hit his receiver in stride for a deep touchdown. In the second play above, Ohio State called a variation of the same concept against Clemson. Fields got to his final progression, which was the running back on the “sweep flare” route while having to manage the pocket because of some interior pressure. On third-and-3, Ohio State ran a “Hank” concept out of a bunch formation. The Penn State defense had a blitz called, but the offense had the right protection and Fields was able to go through his regular progressions. His first read was the “over the ball (OTB)” route, but the defense covered it. His next read was the curl, but two underneath defenders dropped near it. Fields quickly got to his third read, which was the flats. Notice how he quickly snapped to his third read and didn’t overstride into his pass. This play shows that Fields is capable of cleaner mechanics, but he has to make them more consistent.
Aggression Fields makes aggressive decisions and looks for opportunities to throw deep. According to Pro Football Focus, 69.9 percent of his passing yards were air yards, meaning he didn’t accumulate a ton of yards simply because his receivers ran after the catch. On third-and-8, he saw Penn State playing Cover 1 (man-to-man with one deep safety). The free safety was titled away from the three-receiver side and Fields liked his matchup in the slot with receiver Garrett Wilson running a corner route. There’s a chance Wilson may have expected a blitz and cut his route short here. Usually, corner routes break at 12 yards. Wilson broke at about 7, which might explain why Fields holds the ball here. Despite dealing with a compressed pocket and edge pressure, Fields made a perfect touch throw with a defender harassing him. There are a ton of downfield route adjustments and options in the Ohio State offense, which might explain why it may look like Fields is holding on to the ball at times. Regardless, Fields is constantly looking to beat defenses deep. Late The biggest worry with Fields is him being late on certain passes. The worst example of this was the interception he threw at the end of the Clemson game in the 2019 playoffs. He improved on this in 2020, but it still reared its ugly head from time to time, especially during the worst games of his career against Indiana and Northwestern. Here, Ohio State looked to have a seam/curl combination called to Fields’ left (bottom of the screen). The defense was in a Cover 3 shell with the free safety tilted to the boundary on the right. Fields checked the safety after he snapped the ball. Ideally, he should have known that the seam would have been uncapped and went to it right away, but Fields might have seen the seam/flat defender drop deep and look outside. The outside receiver broke down like he was going to run a curl, but might have seen the flat defender drop toward him and tried to move to the next window. This looked to have thrown off Fields, causing him to go back to the seam late. By this time, the free safety made his way over to the other side of the field and intercepted the ball. A lot of the Fields’ criticism stems from the bad games he had against Indiana and Northwestern in which he had a combined two touchdown with five interceptions. There weren’t many excuses that could be made for the Indiana game, but against Northwestern he was missing go-to receiver Chris Olave and freshman Jaxon-Smith-Nigba, arguably his third-best receiver. Still, he made uncharacteristic mistakes. In his two seasons as a starter at Ohio State, he’s had only three games in which had an even or negative touchdown-to-interception ratio, so it’s hard for me to put too much stock in two bad games in 2020. According to Pro Football Focus, Fields has made only 18 turnover-worthy plays in his entire career. Touch The two types of reads that I saw Fields miss the most were when he had opportunities to hit honey-hole shots (hole in the zone between the corner and free safety on the sideline in Cover 2 zones) and seam reads. Fields throws with great touch and some of his best passes of 2020 were down the seam. He needs to do a better job of recognizing when he has opportunities to make more of those passes. Fields can also throw with touch and distance on sideline passes. He threw some beautiful “moon balls” on slot fades and go routes. Pocket presence and working against blitzes Fields stood tall and remained calm in the face of pressure and collapsing pockets. Fields is 6-foot-3 and has no trouble seeing over his line. Even when the pocket is being pushed, he doesn’t have to move around a lot to look for passing lanes. He does an adequate job of managing the pocket and routinely keeps his eyes downfield. He only scrambles if he has a big lane or if he absolutely has to. He’s hard to take down and fearless in the pocket, which sometimes works to his detriment when he does need to speed up his process against the blitz. Working against the blitz is an area in which Fields has to make huge progress as he transitions to the next level. He particularly struggled against late blitzes, in which defenses didn’t show their blitz until the ball was snapped. Here, Ohio State shifted to an empty formation. Fields seemed to have an idea that the inside linebacker was blitzing because he pointed to him to alert the offensive line he’s coming or turn the protection toward him, but Fields didn’t expect the overhang defender to blitz from the left as well. Fields started his read to the right, didn’t see the free rusher and was sacked. Also, Fields didn’t look like he was given a lot of tools to work with against the blitz — like using hard counts to get the defense to show their blitz or sight adjustments. Sight adjustments are adjustments that receivers and quarterbacks could make to take advantage of voids left by blitzes. I didn’t see a lot of receivers making much of them on film. Indiana hurt the Ohio State offense with an aggressive safety blitz multiple times. In the clip, Ohio State had a Hank concept called. Fields looked to the OTB route first but had to wait for Wilson to get his head around. By the time he did, Fields had a free rusher in his face and the zone dropper from the other side closed in on the route. With a sight adjustment built in, Wilson might have got his head around sooner. Fields still might have had an opportunity to make the pass but throwing a bullet to a receiver at that distance when he’s not expecting it until he gets to his landmark could lead to a deflected pass and an interception. Fields was much better against Clemson’s Brett Venables — one of the most aggressive defensive coordinators in the country — in the 2020 playoffs. In that game, Fields threw six touchdown passes. On third-and-10, Ohio State had a 4-verticals concept called with a receiver in fly motion running the seam and the tight end running the deep crosser. Usually, a pass to the deep crosser is thrown a tick later and deeper, but Fields had to adjust against the blitz. Before the snap, Fields looked like he pointed out the blitz. After the snap, Fields threw the ball to his tight end before he got his head around. The placement of the pass was also excellent, as he threw it back shoulder to beat the zone dropper coming from the other side of the field. Fields showed improvement against Clemson and against Alabama, Fields played better than the box score showed, but the offense was just outmatched and couldn’t keep up with a historically good Crimson Tide offense. Still, one of his biggest priorities as a pro should be studying blitzes and knowing exactly how to counter them. NFL defensive coordinators will try to light up him with blitzes. Creating Last but not least, Fields is an elite athlete at the quarterback position and will instantly be one of the NFL’s biggest threats on the ground and creating when plays break down. Fields has the speed to pull away from defenders on horizontal option plays like the zone read and he has the size (228 pounds) to run vertical option plays like the power read. In the first play, he ran a zone read and made Alabama safety Jordan Battle miss in the alley and outran the defense for an explosive play. If Fields starts right away for the team that drafts him, his ability to run read options will help mask some of his early deficiencies as a passer. When he drops back or rolls out, it’ll be difficult for a single defender to bring down. He breaks tackles and runs away from pass rushers to buy time. He’s extremely accurate throwing on the run. He has the ability to throw running left and he can put touch on passes and throw to tight windows on the run.
Those 2 are toxic and amateur. If/ when Watson gets out of this mess it would behoove him to re-examine his inner circle.
These agents are examined based on the dollars they sign their athletes for....I wouldn't call him an amateur, Mulugheta is considered a top-10 agent at his craft due to the signings he's been involved in, but he's definitely getting a reputation for his players pushing the envelope. I wouldn't be surprised if Michael Thomas requested a trade in the next year or so....Lol. His other big clients have (Deshaun/Jalen Ramsey) I definitely can believe that these teams will start to not want to do business with these guys if their "camp" is considered toxic or unprofessional. Kinda like back in the day with TO and Drew Rosenhaus.
Yeah, this definitely isn't a new concept. These GM's take into account everything they can. Obviously skill is the biggest factor, but things like home life, upbringing, study habits, how good a teammate someone is, all of those things weigh in on the decision to take a player or not. And to think that someone might pass up on a guy with questionable representation is fact. Ask the Raiders how well taking guys strictly based on skill has worked out for them...
Totally agree. When it comes to getting the most money for his clients he is as good as it gets. But an agent also needs to advise his clients and educate them about playing the long game. Allowing Watson to demand a trade 6 months after signing that contract is irresponsible on Mulugheta’s part. And the initial tweet he sent after the news broke was pretty bad as well. They need to tighten up over there.
He's an interesting consideration if he's there in the 4th. Has ideal size, but wasn't a starter in HS or until Jr year at Florida. In 22 starts he had 68 TDs and only 15 INTs, and completed 68% of his passes. https://www.nfl.com/prospects/kyle-trask/32005452-4138-9332-1a15-4c69635ccf01 He's a Texas boy named after A&M's Kyle Field, who's grand pappy was a Houston Oiler during their AFL title days and could be a late bloomer.
