Welcome to the era of the running quarterback.
Three of the past six NFL MVP awards have gone to Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen, who have combined for 89 rushing touchdowns and over 10,000 rushing yards across their elite seven-year careers. They are the headliners of a movement culminating in 10 quarterbacks placing among the league’s top 40 players in rushing touchdowns during the 2024 season.
The leader of those 10 quarterbacks was Jalen Hurts, who topped quarterbacks and tied for fifth among all players with 14 rushing scores. Hurts went on to win Super Bowl MVP honors after a playoff run in which he added five more rushing touchdowns to his name; his 19 total rushing touchdowns (regular season and playoffs) were a single-season quarterback record.
If Hurts can do it… Why can’t Justin Fields be a superstar in this modern NFL landscape?
When you compare the players side by side, they feel eerily similar in many ways. From a projection standpoint, there is nothing Hurts can do that Fields is physically incapable of. They are both dual-threat quarterbacks with strong arms and a unique combination of size and speed.
In a league filled with incredible athletes under center, Fields remains one of the two or three most jaw-dropping. His unofficial 4.46 time in the 40-yard dash while weighing 227 pounds remains one of the most impressive athletic feats in the history of pre-draft testing at the quarterback position.
That has translated to the field. The Ohio State product is averaging 50.2 rushing yards per game for his career, placing second in NFL history among quarterbacks with at least 20 games played (trailing only Jackson).
Yet, Fields has a 14-30 record as a starting quarterback and is on his third NFL team in five seasons. He is the Jets’ penciled-in starter for the 2025 season, and while New York has high hopes for the 26-year-old, few people outside of Florham Park are buying in.
And for good reason: Fields’ passing remains a massive work in progress. Among the 38 quarterbacks with at least 700 pass attempts since 2021, Fields ranks 34th in passer rating (83.9) and 36th in completion percentage (61.1%). The only players beneath him in both categories are Bryce Young and Zach Wilson.
As easy as it may be to write Fields off when you see numbers like these, NFL fans often forget that Hurts was once in a very similar position.
In fact, there are reasons to believe that Fields might be able to emulate Hurts’ rise to championship-caliber stardom as a dominant running quarterback – even if he is a late bloomer.
Justin Fields vs. Jalen Hurts career development
Pre-draft
Hurts’ path to the NFL draft was rockier than Fields’, which contributed to Fields being drafted earlier, but they ultimately entered the league as similar prospects.
Fields was a five-star recruit coming out of high school. He was the consensus No. 2 quarterback prospect in the nation behind Trevor Lawrence, including the No. 1 dual-threat quarterback.
After barely playing in his freshman year at Georgia, Fields transferred to Ohio State, where he had a dominant two-year run as the Buckeyes’ starter. Fields threw for 63 touchdowns and nine interceptions while adding 15 rushing touchdowns.
Despite completing 70% of his passes in 2020, Fields dropped to 11th overall in the 2021 draft, with some scouts expressing concerns about his development as a passer in his junior season. Zach Wilson and Trey Lance’s late surges also dampened Fields’ stock.
Fields’ reputation and elite physical tools were enough to keep him in the top 11. Still, with the benefit of hindsight, it sure feels like the Jets and 49ers were foolish to overlook Fields’ body of work in favor of Wilson and Lance’s small samples of flashes (even if Fields was not a slam-dunk pick for Chicago).
Hurts was not as decorated of a high school prospect as Fields. He was a four-star recruit and ranked 13th on ESPN’s ranking of dual-threat quarterback prospects in the 2016 class.
Hurts’ college resume featured plenty of flashes, but it was more porous than Fields’. He took over Alabama’s starting job early in his freshman season and held it down for the majority of his first two seasons. Hurts racked up 40 passing touchdowns and 21 rushing touchdowns with only 10 interceptions, but in 2017, his completion percentage barely eclipsed 60%. Hurts was benched for Tua Tagovailoa in the National Championship Game, and in his junior year, he was relegated to Tagovailoa’s backup.
For his 2019 senior season, Hurts transferred to Oklahoma, where he had a breakout year. Hurts boosted his completion percentage to 69.5%, tossing 32 touchdowns to eight interceptions while stockpiling an absurd 20 rushing touchdowns.
Hurts displayed excellent athleticism in the 2020 pre-draft process, although not quite to Fields’ level. He ran a 4.59 in the 40 (90th percentile among QB) at 222 pounds (52nd percentile). That’s still elite in its own right, but it just goes to show how otherworldly it is that Fields ran a 4.46 (98th percentile) at 227 (72nd percentile).
Hurts’ athletic tools and breakout 2020 season made him an enticing prospect, but with only one year of high-level passing under his belt, along with his benching at Alabama and lackluster recruiting pedigree, Hurts ended up as a mid-second round pick (53rd overall).
Despite the differences in their road to the NFL and where they were drafted, the gist of these two prospects was similar. They were remarkable athletes with proven abilities as elite rushers, and while they had flashed high-level passing efficiency in college, NFL teams were skeptical of whether they had the fundamentals to translate it to the next level.
Both prospects were viewed as needing significant development in the passing game – and that turned out to be correct.
Year 1
It is easy to forget now, but Fields and Hurts started their NFL careers at a similar level. In some ways, Fields was ahead of Hurts as a passer.
In terms of accuracy, Hurts was an utterly abysmal passer in his 2020 rookie season. He ranked last among 42 quarterbacks (min. 100 pass attempts) in completion percentage (52%), adjusted completion percentage (65.2%), and completion percentage over expected (-8.5%).
To his credit, Hurts threw for 7.2 yards per attempt and had six touchdown passes to four interceptions. However, his incredibly poor accuracy made him one of the league’s worst quarterbacks despite his decent performance in other areas. He ranked 40th in overall PFF grade (56.2) and 37th in QBR (33.8).
Fields also struggled with accuracy to start his career, but he wasn’t nearly as awful as Hurts. In his 2021 rookie season, Fields ranked 37th in completion percentage (58.9%), 40th in adjusted completion percentage (66.9%), and 26th in completion percentage over expected (-2.0%).
Fields struggled more than Hurts in other areas, posting seven touchdowns to 10 interceptions and only 6.9 yards per attempt. Overall, Fields had a slightly lower QBR (31.4).
Ultimately, both quarterbacks started off poorly and had a lot of work to do, but Hurts’ accuracy issues were significantly worse, giving Fields a slight edge overall.
It is crucial to note that both quarterbacks were playing on bad teams in their rookie year. Hurts was on a 4-11-1 Eagles team that had not yet built the elite roster it is known for today. The 2020 Eagles finished 19th in PFF’s offensive line rankings and 32nd in PFF’s receiving rankings. Meanwhile, Fields was on a 6-11 Bears team that ranked 22nd in the offensive line rankings and 26th in the receiving rankings.
Going into Year 2, we had two ultra-athletic quarterbacks who could make plays with their legs but needed immense work as passers. They each required better help from their supporting casts to have a chance of making the necessary progress.
Only one of them got that help.
Year 2
The Eagles made immense improvements to the infrastructure around Hurts going into his second season. In 2021, Philadelphia finished fourth in PFF’s offensive line rankings (up 15 spots) and 15th in the receiving rankings (up 17 spots).
This did not happen by accident. The Eagles drafted wide receiver DeVonta Smith in the first round and guard Landon Dickerson in the second round; both players immediately boosted their respective units. Howie Roseman made it his mission to give Hurts the best chance to succeed, something that the Chicago Bears did not do for Fields (as we will get to).
Hurts responded with a sizable leap in his second season, although there was still work to be done. His completion percentage jumped from 52% to 61.3%, placing him 30th out of 42 qualifiers. His adjusted completion percentage was 73.7% (25th), and his completion percentage over expected was 0.1% (20th).
Overall, Hurts finished 2021 with 16 touchdowns, nine interceptions, and 7.3 yards per attempt. He finished 24th out of 42 in passer rating (87.2) and 22nd in QBR (54.6).
Fields was not placed in nearly as favorable of a position entering his second season. Chicago’s lack of activity in the 2022 offseason was startling.
The Bears’ most expensive free agent signing on offense (in terms of salary) was wide receiver Byron Pringle on a one-year, $4.1 million deal. They used their first two draft picks on defensive players and wound up drafting just one offensive player within the first 160 picks: third-round wide receiver Velus Jones.
Yep, that’s it. Here you go, Justin, we got you Byron Pringle and Velus Jones! Go have a breakout year, kid.
The Bears got the results they deserved. While their offensive line improved to 14th in PFF’s overall rankings, Chicago landed 32nd in the receiving rankings by a huge margin. The gap between the Bears’ last-ranked 62.1 receiving grade and the 31st-ranked Cardinals’ 65.1 was larger than the gap between any two teams on the list. It was an unfathomably bad pass-catching unit, with tight end Cole Kmet finishing as the team’s leading receiver (544 yards).
Despite the insulting lack of support from Chicago’s front office, Fields still went out and made good progress in his second season. Fields finished 2022 with 17 touchdowns, 11 interceptions, and 7.1 yards per attempt, improving from 7:10 and 6.9 in his rookie year. He increased his completion percentage from 58.9% to 60.4%, and his adjusted completion percentage from 66.9% to 71.7% (32nd of 44).
Fields also became a rushing superstar of historic proportions. In 2022, he ran for 1,143 yards and eight touchdowns on just 160 attempts, leading the league with 7.1 yards per attempt. As of 2024, no other quarterback in league history has posted those numbers in a season.
Overall, Fields ranked 28th of 44 in passer rating (85.2), a 12-point improvement from his rookie year, while his QBR saw a whopping 25.2-point jump to a 19th-ranked 56.3. Compare those numbers to Hurts’ 87.2 passer rating and 54.6 QBR (with a substantially better supporting cast). Their second-season passing performances were basically identical in terms of efficiency.
Through two years, both players had taken significant leaps in their second seasons. Yet, one of them did it alongside a massively strengthened supporting cast, while the other did it with Darnell Mooney, Equanimeous St. Brown, and Dante Pettis as his top three wideouts.
Fields had the upper hand over Hurts through two years. He was producing the same efficiency with much less help. As the better athlete and higher-ranked prospect, it is fair to say his future looked brighter.
But as we have seen multiple times in NFL history, young quarterbacks can only shine through the darkness for so long until it starts to break them. Starting in Year 3, the Bears’ negligence began to take its toll on Fields, while the Eagles’ thorough nurturing began to pay remarkable dividends.
Year 3 and beyond
The Eagles were not content with their improvements around Hurts in 2021. Entering his third season, they traded for Titans wide receiver A.J. Brown and used a second-round pick on offensive lineman Cam Jurgens. These moves helped Philadelphia’s offensive line jump from fourth to first, and their receiving unit to leap from 15th to seventh.
Hurts exploded in just about every passing category in 2022, finishing second in MVP voting behind Patrick Mahomes. He threw for 22 touchdowns, six interceptions, and 8.0 yards per attempt, earning a 101.5 passer rating (fifth) and 68.3 QBR (fourth).
For the most part, Hurts has sustained this level of play. He had a down year in 2023, but in 2024, he returned to a similar level of passing efficiency, especially when including his playoff performance.
The Eagles did a fantastic job of creating a smooth upward development curve for Hurts. They supplemented him with an improved supporting cast in his second and third seasons, and Hurts responded accordingly. Now, it appears he has reached a sustained level of excellence, affirming that he has legitimately developed as a player and does not merely ride the ebbs and flows of his surroundings.
Considering where both quarterbacks were after their second seasons, it is easy to picture Fields making a similar leap in his third season if he received enough support. Instead, another season of poor support led to Fields’ development stunting in 2023.
To the Bears’ credit, they traded for Panthers wide receiver D.J. Moore and selected offensive tackle Darnell Wright in the first round. They also signed former Titans guard Nate Davis to a three-year, $30 million deal, although he is the only offensive free agent they signed to a deal worth over $3 million per year in 2023.
Chicago’s receiving unit improved from 32nd to a league-average 16th, but the offensive line dropped from 14th to 21st. Perhaps most important of all, offensive coordinator Luke Getsy compounded the roster issues.
Formerly a longtime assistant with the Packers’ passing game, Chicago hired Getsy as a first-year offensive coordinator in 2022, and the results were poor. Not wanting to force Fields to learn his third offense in as many years, the Bears decided to stick with Getsy, but it was a subtraction by retention, as Getsy was one of the worst play callers in football.
Without above-average help in any area – receiving, blocking, or coaching – Fields plateaued in 2023. He finished with 16 touchdowns, nine interceptions, and 6.9 yards per attempt.
While he saw slight improvements to his completion percentage (60.4% to 61.4%) and adjusted completion percentage (71.7% to 74.4%), Fields’ rushing impact took a major step back. In 13 games, he rushed for only 657 yards and four touchdowns, around half of his 2022 production. He averaged a career-low 5.3 yards per rush attempt.
Overall, Fields’ QBR dropped over 10 points to 46.1, ranking 29th of 45, while his passer rating improved marginally to 86.3 (26th).
Three years in, Fields was hardly playing above the bar that separates starters from backups. Yet, Hurts, who was at an equal or lower footing than Fields at every stage of their careers beforehand (high school through Year 2 of NFL), was suddenly a superstar. Only one year earlier in the comparison, they were producing similar efficiency despite Fields being in a much worse situation.
It goes to show the importance of a quarterback’s third season. This is often the year when quarterbacks put it all together, with Hurts’ 2022 season and Josh Allen’s 2020 season being excellent examples from recent history.
Fields did take the Year 2 leap that you wanted to see after he started off his career at a low point. He went from a complete project to on the verge of stardom if he could take another leap of the same size. Once again, you can look at Allen’s 2019 season as another great example of this. His 2018-19 progression fits right in with Hurts’ 2020-21 jump and Fields’ 2021-22 jump: going from “poor” to “on the cusp.”
It’s the Year 3 leap that Fields couldn’t make. And when you compare his supporting cast to the ones provided for Hurts and Allen, it is hard not to place much of the blame on Chicago for not giving Fields the tools he needed to continue developing year-over-year.
How much is due to support, and how much is on the player?
Fields’ supporting cast undoubtedly played a role in stunting his growth. Nonetheless, Fields deserves some blame for his own underperformance. There are multiple parts of his game where he could have been better, regardless of the pieces around him.
As for Hurts, while he was certainly aided by Philadelphia’s all-world roster, he deserves credit for his individual progress in multiple aspects of the position.
There are three particular areas where Hurts has outpaced Fields.
Ball security
One crucial area where Hurts has jumped in front of Fields is ball security. Fields continues to struggle here, canceling out the positives of his game, while Hurts’ ability to protect the ball has helped elevate the rest of his game.
For his career, Fields has 57 turnover-worthy throws on 1,119 pass attempts, per PFF, which is a 5.1% rate. Hurts was in this ballpark over his first two seasons, registering a 4.7% rate.
Since then, Hurts has taken a big step forward. He’s only tossed 32 turnover-worthy throws on 1,359 attempts, a 3.1% rate. This aligns with his decrease in actual interceptions. Hurts only has 26 interceptions since 2022, a 1.9% rate. Fields has 31 career interceptions on 1,119 attempts, a 2.8% rate.
Fumbles are a part of this as well. Fields has 44 career fumbles on 1,688 plays (combined pass attempts, rush attempts, and sacks). That’s one fumble every 38.4 plays, the worst rate among qualified starters since 2021.
Hurts was similarly poor over his first two seasons. Through 2021, he had 18 fumbles on 821 plays, which is one every 45.6 plays.
Just like in the passing department, Hurts began taking much better care of the ball in his third season. From 2022-24, he had 27 fumbles on 1,943 plays, which is a far more respectable rate of one every 72 plays.
While having a great offensive line and great receivers helps Hurts limit potential turnovers, it is still something that he deserves credit for. And while Fields’ propensity for turnovers may be partially caused by his supporting casts, it does not completely excuse his lackadasical ball security – especially in the fumble department. You should always secure the football, regardless of the situation.
Intermediate passing
Fields has had a phenomenal deep ball since his college days, and it’s remained a weapon for him in the NFL.
Even back in 2023, when his development stunted, Fields was one of the league’s best deep passers. That year, Fields had a 52.8% adjusted completion percentage on deep passes, which ranked seventh-best out of 38 qualifiers that season. Despite five drops, he completed 23-of-52 deep passes for 673 yards, eight touchdowns, and two interceptions (114.6 passer rating).
Hurts has always had the deep ball in his game as well, and his big arm is one of the key reasons why he has become one of the league’s top passers. It’s a ceiling-raising skill.
To hit that ceiling, though, you need to be consistent with the little things that string together the highlight moments. And to be more consistent, you need to keep the ball moving down the field in between the occasional deep ball. That entails getting chunk gains in the intermediate range.
Fields continues to struggle in this part of the field. Hurts, on the other hand, has become a star in this area.
Compare Fields and Hurts’ numbers as intermediate passers (attempts from 10-19 air yards) in their third seasons:
- Fields (2023): 25-of-52 for 437 yards, 2 TD, 5 INT – 50.0% adjusted completions (38th of 40), 50.4 passer rating (40th)
- Hurts (2022): 51-of-82 for 977 yards, 5 TD, 2 INT – 69.5% adjusted completions (8th of 41), 113.7 passer rating (6th)
This breakout established Hurts as one of the league’s premier intermediate passers. Hurts generated very similar numbers over the following two seasons, posting adjusted completion percentages of 69.8% and 70.8%, and passer ratings of 126.3 and 108.9.
In 2024 with the Steelers, Fields showed much-improved efficiency over a small sample of 22 attempts (63.6% adjusted completions, 130.9 passer rating). However, it is concerning that he avoided this part of the field. He ranked last with only 13.7% of his pass attempts targeting the intermediate range.
Once again, while the difference in these quarterbacks’ supporting casts may have contributed to this aspect of their games, it is still something they can both own. In fact, Hurts was already flashing talent in this area when Philadelphia still had a poor supporting cast around him.
During his 2020 rookie season, Hurts completed 23-of-38 intermediate passes for 386 yards, two touchdowns, and one interception – this coming over just 148 total pass attempts. Out of 45 qualifiers, his 65.8% adjusted completion percentage ranked 23rd, while his 101.4 passer rating was also 23rd. Most notably, Hurts ranked sixth with 25.7% of his attempts targeting the intermediate range.
This is one area where Hurts might be flat-out better than Fields. We’ve seen Hurts flash talent as a middle-of-the-field passer since day one, even when the rest of his game was rocky and his supporting cast was weak. He took that talent and gradually honed it to the point where it is now the core of his emergence into a high-level passer.
Can Fields make the same jump?
While it is not impossible, Fields is well behind Hurts in this area. Fields has shown flashes of intermediate capabilities, including an efficient chunk of production over a tiny sample in 2024, but it has never been his forte. Hurts showed potential here from the beginning.
Avoiding sacks
Sacks have been Fields’ nemesis throughout his career. His career 11.9% sack rate is the highest among qualified quarterbacks since 2021.
These sacks cause many issues in Fields’ game. Not only do many of his fumbles occur on them, but he also buries himself into daunting down-and-distance situations, creating more opportunities to attempt dangerous passes.
High sack totals are often the byproduct of playing the quarterback position with a mobile style. If you tend to try and escape the pocket and extend plays (rather than stay tethered to the pocket and get the ball out quickly), you are going to create a bevy of extra sack opportunities. Even if you are athletic enough to shake many of these potential sacks, the increase in sack opportunities leads to more total sacks.
But not every mobile quarterback struggles with sacks. The league’s best mobile quarterbacks develop a knack for knowing when it’s time to get rid of the ball and avoid a huge loss of yardage. Hurts has pulled it off.
Hurts has a career sack rate of 7.2%. While that is still subpar, ranking 29th out of 43 qualifiers since 2020, it is far more digestible than Fields’ 11.9%. In fact, Fields has taken the same number of sacks as Hurts (151) despite throwing 820 fewer passes.
Like intermediate passing, this is another area where Hurts was already displaying upside early in his career. Hurts had an 8.1% sack rate as a rookie and improved to 5.7% in his second season. He has fluctuated throughout his career, but never reached double digits, which Fields has done three times.
While some may choose to blame a quarterback’s sack total on his offensive line, it is actually a quarterback stat. The offensive line’s job is to prevent pressure. It is up to the quarterback to prevent pressures from becoming sacks.
So, yes, Hurts has enjoyed much better protection in his career than Fields, and that has probably helped him take fewer sacks. But Hurts is still much better than Fields at avoiding sacks when he is pressured. Hurts has been sacked on 17.4% of his pressured dropbacks, while Fields’ rate is all the way up at 22.9%. Hurts’ rookie-year rate (17.1%) was better than Fields’ career-best (19.3%, 2023).
Yet again, we have a key area of the position where Hurts might just be a better player than Fields. Hurts was doing a respectable job of minimizing sacks even when he was a rookie with a poor supporting cast, so you cannot make the same excuse for Fields.
Going forward, Fields needs to forge individual improvement in this particular skill. It is not an area where Fields will automatically close ground on Hurts simply due to experience or a better supporting cast.
Can Fields catch up to Hurts?
It is interesting to wonder how these players’ careers could have gone differently if they swapped landing spots.
What if a young Fields got to fine-tune his game while throwing to A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith behind the protection of Lane Johnson, Jason Kelce, and Jordan Mailata? Would Hurts have ever developed beyond his early-career form if he ran Luke Getsy’s offense with Darnell Mooney as his WR1?
Through two years, Fields had the better outlook. Fields and Hurts were producing near-identical efficiency as passers, with Fields outperforming his situation to a much greater degree. Fields was also more outstanding as a runner, had the better pedigree dating back to high school, and was the better athlete. One could argue that Fields’ advantage in raw talent is what put him in the driver’s seat through this point of their respective careers.
From there, though, the impact of player development kicked in.
Hurts was carefully nurtured in Philadelphia. His front office cared about giving him the best chance to succeed, and his coaches were good at their jobs. He enjoyed the benefit of gradually adding pieces to his game year-over-year, never needing to skip steps to compensate for a shoddy team. He learned how to play his part in contributing to a winning ecosystem where he was not asked to do everything.
While Fields kept pace with Hurts through two years on the strength of sheer ability, bad habits began kicking in after Chicago continuously asked him to play hero ball. Whereas Hurts was learning how to play his role within a winning football team, Fields was out there playing backyard football to try and single-handedly steer a rudderless ship to shore.
Chicago’s coaches failed to help Fields hone his elite traits into a more pure and reliable form that could be used to generate consistency from the pocket. The combination of bad protection and bad separation exacerbated his tendency to hold the football for too long and try to do too much with it.
All of this is in the past, though. Like the early years of a child on this planet, the early years of Fields and Hurts’ careers are already deeply embedded into their minds and bodies. Hurts has been carefully molded into a star. Fields is a once-promising fixer-upper whose scars will require some TLC to be undone – if it is even possible.
Luckily for Fields, he comes to the Jets at a point in NFL history where fixer-uppers are all the rage at the quarterback position.
Baker Mayfield, Sam Darnold, and Geno Smith have led a recent wave of highly drafted quarterbacks who struggled early in their careers before achieving late breakouts. Their success stories lend credence to the idea that someone like Fields could still have another level to tap into, even if their career to date suggests that such an idea is far-fetched.
Mayfield achieved a sixth-year resurgence in Tampa Bay at 28 years old and reached brand-new heights at 29. Darnold was on his fourth team and in his seventh NFL season when he exploded in Minnesota at 27. Smith was already 32 and in his 10th NFL season when he finally put it together with the Seahawks.
Fields is only 26. This will be his fifth NFL season. His physical traits are beyond those of any of the three aforementioned quarterbacks. If they can reach new heights out of nowhere, why not Fields?
From being the No. 1 dual-threat quarterback in the nation, to dominating at Ohio State, to taking a major step forward in his second NFL season, Fields spent many years on a trajectory to become who Jalen Hurts is today. He lost his way in Chicago. That is largely the Bears’ fault, but as we sit here in 2025, Fields needs to put it all on his own shoulders. Hypotheticals and the blame game are meaningless at this point. Whether the persisting holes in his game are Chicago’s fault or not, they exist. Fields must embrace them.
We know what Fields can do. He can run the ball not just as well as Hurts, but as well as any quarterback in the league. He can also toss the deep ball as well as anybody.
Fields can and has matched Hurts in these areas. Where Hurts has outpaced Fields is in fundamental areas such as ball security, intermediate accuracy, and sack avoidance. These are three of the most critical areas for developing consistency as a pocket passer in the NFL, which is necessary if a dual-threat player wants to become not just a winning fantasy quarterback, but a winning real-life quarterback.
There is a chance that Hurts might simply be a better player than Fields, no matter how similar they may appear in a vacuum. Hurts showed flashes with his intermediate passing and sack avoidance from day one, even in a similarly poor situation as Fields. We have not seen those flashes from Fields. He might not have these skills in him.
But nobody thought Sam Darnold had 35 touchdowns in him, or that Geno Smith had a 70% completion percentage in him.
In the modern NFL, both the general public and the teams themselves have grown impatient with young quarterbacks. Seeking to maximize the rookie contract structure, teams throw youngsters into the fire and expect them to begin flashing superstar potential as soon as Year 2. The time-bomb starts ticking in Year 3, and if they aren’t thriving by the end of that season, they’re gone, and the replacement is in.
Yet, the guy getting tossed aside is usually somewhere around 24-25 years old, playing a position where players tend to last until their late 30s and peak in their early 30s. Their development is handled equally to players across the rest of the sport as if their timelines are the same, when that could not be further from the truth. Maybe a running back who has not broken out after three years is a lost cause, but we’ve seen enough from the quarterback position throughout history to know this is not the case for them.
Before quarterback contracts began exploding, teams were patient with young quarterbacks, even if they were drafted highly. For decades, it was common practice to give the kiddos at least one year of seasoning before handing them the keys to an organization. Teams knew how unfathomably difficult it was to transition from playing college ball as the hotshot on campus to being an inexperienced kid charged with leading a group of grown men. So they treated the prospects like the human beings that they are.
Nothing changed in the past decade to make it any easier for quarterbacks to transition into the NFL game. If anything, it became more complex and more difficult. Yet, impatient teams have thrown away the decades of player-development practices that were tried and true, yielding championship players like Brett Favre and Aaron Rodgers. The one modern team that did use this model reaped the rewards of three Super Bowls.
All of this is to say that Fields’ four seasons of NFL woes to date should not rule out the idea that he might be able to improve aspects of his game where he has not shown much promise just yet. He is 26. Perhaps this is who he is, but he deserves a chance to prove otherwise. Mayfield, Darnold, and Smith have proven that it is completely possible for some quarterbacks to be late bloomers, even if today’s landscape has dissuaded teams from giving quarterbacks that opportunity.
Their success has paved a new road for the Fields of the world. Perhaps without Mayfield, Darnold, and Smith, it would be absurd to suggest that Fields could be anything different than what he’s been for four years. But we’ve seen with our own eyes – multiple times – breakouts from quarterbacks who were older than Fields and less physically gifted. For that reason, nothing can be ruled out just yet.
Fields is still capable of joining the league’s most successful dual-threat quarterbacks. He has the skill set to be a similar player to Hurts – an electric size/speed rusher with a booming deep ball and enough consistency in the game-management areas to be a winning starter.
To do it, he must match Hurts’ steps forward in three areas: ball security, intermediate passing, and sack avoidance.
Nobody cares whether Hurts would have developed those skills or not with a worse team, or whether Fields would have had them with a better team. We’re here now. Through a combination of the Bears’ woes and Fields’ own weaknesses, those are the sole areas that stand between a “fun” fantasy quarterback with a 14-30 record and a Super Bowl MVP.
But that’s about it. All of the same tools that serve as Hurts’ foundation exist within Fields, perhaps to an even stronger degree. Hurts has just been able to hone the finer points that Fields has not.
Like some of the late bloomers before him, Fields was on the right track at one point – he just got derailed. But with talent like his, it’s never too late to find a way back on track, especially not at a ripe 26. Fields must show he is the next quarterback who can use his tools to foster late-career development in the areas where his growth may have been stunted by his surroundings.
Patch those three holes in his game, and Fields’ ascension could occur much more rapidly than many around the NFL are prepared for.
