Bears fans aren’t going to like Chris Simms roasting Justin Fields
By Josh Hill
Chris Simms had the exact opposite of high praise for Chicago Bears quarterback Justin Fields.
We’re dead center in the middle of the NFL offseason, where we’re too close to the NFL Draft to have anything other than regency bias yet too far away from the season for most opinions to matter.
Talking is what this time of the year is best for, and Chris Simms is doing a lot of that about new Chicago Bears quarterback Justin Fields.
Chicago traded up to No. 11 in the NFL Draft to take Fields to be the quarterback of the future Mitchell Trubisky couldn’t be. But while there is a ton of hope and hype in the Windy City for Fields, the critics are letting it be known where they stand.
In his rankings of the top quarterbacks in the NFL entering the 2021 season, Simms listed Fields at No. 39 which was one spot ahead of Case Keenum and one spot behind Trey Lance.
“He’s got the potential to be a Top-20 guy halfway through the year,” Simms said. “He could fall down further than [39th-ranked] if it got to the bad aspects that scare me.”
Bears Rumors: What did Chris Simms say about Justin Fields?
Fields was one of the top-ranked quarterbacks in this year’s class, but Simms believes he’s still miles behind even the bottom starting quarterbacks in the NFL.
”The throwing mechanics are really the biggest issues, the inconsistencies there. Too many slam dunk NFL completions that were left as incomplete in the college game, that bothers me.”
Simms went as far as to label Fields a boom-or-bust prospect before launching into almost 16 full uninterrupted minutes of taking him apart. The main criticism Simms had was with Fields throwing motion, something he said is not on the level of some of the top quarterbacks in the league and is a major cause for concern when it comes to getting the ball out fast enough at the pace NFL offenses move.
“You’re going to have to have the right people there to help you with it,” Simms said of Fields potentially being able to fix his throwing motion. “I don’t know if Chicago has those people.”
All the criticisms considered, Simms wants it to be explicitly clear that he is rooting for Fields to prove the doubters wrong.
“I hope the [expletive] guy balls out and [expletive] on me and shows everybody,” Simms said. “It’s not personal.”