This isn’t about whether we should draft him or not. This is just in general. I think you all know where I stand on this.
What pushed me over the line to make this thread though was someone (I didn’t recognize them) on a mock draft special on ESPN falsely said that “Justin Fields was going to play baseball at Ohio State” and that the reason he didn’t was “because COVID messed it up” and that playing baseball either at OSU or in his passed contributed to “messing up his throwing mechanics”. Where was that energy with Kyler Murray exactly? Why didn’t people question how passionate Kyler was about football? He played another sport too.
I’m just curious about everyone’s thoughts on this.
I’m adding a poll too to get a sense of the raw number…
Is Justin Fields getting an unfair amount of criticism?
Yea, it’s all smokescreens. The 49ers might love him and could be planning to take him for all we know. My biggest criticism of Fields is how poorly he played vs Illinois and in the big ten championship game. He’s still going to be a top 10 pick regardless because he’s got fantastic dual threat skills.
I am not for us taking Fields but i agree with Wes …to many media types are all over about him…an I think its unfair to him…the same can be said about the talk about Jones listen to some he is a walking brain other he can’t throw a fast ball or run even in a fire.
So Fields is the dummy an Jones is the brain an Fields can run but Jones walks…They both played QB for a major school an played well . So each team pick who you want an move on an stop bashing all of them until they suck as pros.
At leas with new cap structure your not stuck with a bust for years you can bite the dead cap money an move on in few years.
Quarterbacks will always get undue criticism, much of it unfair.
Is Fields, yes in all likelihood, long term he will have the ability to silence his critics with his play on the field. He will be fine and I suspect a long and successful career.
Yes he is. It’s almost necessary though at this point. Without an actual combine, with a good chunk of guys opting out for 2020, and many others limited to 6-8 games there is more opportunities for speculation and tinkering than ever before.
People are souring on him because of two games in which he no showed against Indiana and Northwestern which is dumb because it ignores the much larger sample size of stellar play.
Furthermore, Wilson played nobody and looked average at best against one of the best defenses he played all season who was…wait for it… the juggernaut Coastal Carolina.
Teams love Wilson because he makes those wonky throws like Mahomes and Murray make and assume that he’ll be the next superstar as a result (Murray is overrated btw). The reality is that the gunslinger mentality is very hit or miss and you need to be a really special talent to harness that successfully at the NFL level.
I get the appeal of Wilson but people acting like he’s a level above Fields are crazy. Wilson is mostly a projection QB because he hasn’t done a thing against legit competition. In a way, I think he’s a bigger risk than Fields because he hasn’t really proved it in game action, similar to Lance, and they both have similar upside.
I didn’t like the way he played in those games as well (it was Indiana, not Illinois). But admittedly I was just going off games I watched live and hadn’t done a real film study on him yet. Now that I have a better sense of how he normally plays based on watching alot more film, I can say those games are outliers. And not only are they outliers, they are outliers in a COVID year where he was coming off of a break before the games. It was 2 weeks to get to the Indiana game (limited contact between individuals the entire time) and by the time he played Northwestern having played only 1 game in a month and only 2 games in a 5-6 week span. And not only did that lack of games happen in a COVID year where practices and everything else was limited…during that time a huge chunk of the players and even the head coach and other staff members contracted COVID and had to step away from the team.
After reviewing the other film and then taking other information available into consideration, here is where I land on those games. I think the NW game speaks for itself and was a true obstacle that he would never have to deal with in the NFL and normal times. I think the layoff between games let him get into his own head.
I have no problem saying that Fields should be rated ahead of Wilson based on resume. However, I disagree with the general notion that Wilson just threw some trick passes at his pro day and people are getting overly excited…and he’s done nothing ON THE FIELD. Those throws show up on his game tape. Someone like Mac Jones trying to mimic those throws to impress scouts is just that…no pass rush throws that Mac can’t make in a game other than some fluke play. For Wilson that moment was different. For Wilson its just confirmation of what he can do on the field if you’ve watched the tape.
I have no idea if Wilson will be successful in the NFL. But I can see why people are getting excited about him. One of the things that makes Aaron Rodgers so special is his ability to rip off a strong and accurate pass at any moment with any footwork and any situation. And Wilson has a similar skill that coaches want to tap into.
I meant hasn’t proven it in the sense that he never shined against legit competition. Their schedule this season was a joke, mainly due to COVID, and the one game I saw him against a team with a pulse Coastal Carolina, he struggled for long stretches. I saw a lot of that game and came out of it more unsure than ever if he was the right QB for the Lions.
He has undeniable arm talent, arguably the best arm talent in the draft, but it he’s largely unproven on the field against real competition. A lot of his projection is based on talent moreso than proven play. Look at what Fields did against Clemson, that alone far exceeds anything Wilson has done on the field.
Alot of people point out that game. It was a strange scenario where they had played 1 game in 3 weeks and then that game was thrown together with a few days notice. A COVID year game booked at the last minute where they had to fly out to the opposite coast is not a scenario I’m worried about the guy having to deal with in the pros.