Staying Away from the Checkdown Charlies

Analytics can produce numbers reflecting only past statistical production and they're really not much good then except as novelties.

They don't have to be that way, though.

In the case of two passing stat packages released Monday by Pro Football Focus, there is a good warning and a positive sign contained within or the Bears and Justin Fields about the future.

Any time a quarterback is associated with deep passing and big gains it's desireable, considering the importance of yards per pass attempt in relations to victory in the NFL.

From that standpoint, Justin Fields is looking fair strong for the future according to a pair of stories done by Pro Football Focus' Lauren Gray looking at deep passing.

The first was a ranking of the league's "checkdown Charlies," the guys who are all too willing to abandon the deeper targets and take the 5-yard completion to a back or tight end. It's going to hurt yards per attempt when QBs do this, in most cases.

The sixth-lowest checkdown rate in the NFL belongs to Justin Fields, according to Gray. Fields dumped it down on 17 out of 318 pass attempts last year for a 5.3% rate. Only Jalen Hurts, Trevor Lawrence, Patrick Mahomes, Lamar Jackson and Kyler Murray rated better for keeping their aim downfield.

Baker Mayfield rated the checkdown king last year at 11.9%. Surprisingly, Justin Herbert ranked second in checkdowns at 11.7% but the rest of the top 10 in this regard carried no surprises with names like Andy Dalton, Davis Mills and Mac Jones dominating the top 10 or bottom 10 depending on your perspective.

The negative in here is where Fields ranked in deep passing performances for 2022 according to Gray's articles.

Known as an accurate deep passer in the past, Fields was only 22nd last year.

He was 17th in deep passing yards with 624, ninth in deep passing TDs and 17th again in deep passer rating at 89.4. That actually was better than his regular passer rating last season.

However, ranking 22nd in deep passing completions at 35.3% dragged him down.

The danger in all of this is how it can affect the Bears offense with offensive coordinator Luke Getsy's play-calling and Fields' decision-making on the field.

The Bears could become too restrictive with Fields and in turn his yards per attempt could suffer.

It was apparent last year in a stretch of games from Week 5 through Week 17 that Fields was making an attempt to be more careful with the ball. His pass rating came up, but his yards per attempt slid.

He averaged 6.78 yards an attempt in his final five games and earlier when he was looking downfield more was averaging 7.36 for the seven games prior. Of course, it didn't help matters that his top receiver got hurt in Week 12 as Darnell Mooney was done for the year.

The receiving situation is one Gray brings up in his analysis about why Fields was just 22nd in deep passing.

"(DJ) Moore's acquisition should open things up for Fields," Gray wrote. "Moore led Carolina with 436 deep receiving yards in 2022 (eighth) and four touchdowns (tied for fifth)."

As long as Fields has Moore and better receivers overall, and he avoids becoming one of the checkdown Charlies, he'll eventually be able to keep his yards per attempt up and be up in the ranks with the quarterback who was at the White House on Monday celebrating the Chiefs' Lombardi Trophy. If he gets too cautious, he'll wind up like other past Bears passers in the sub-7.0 range and just trying to stay in the league.

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