Here’s a reasonable projection for Justin Fields’ stats in 2023

I received a text message the other day when news broke about Chicago Bears quarterback Justin Fields getting together with Bears pass-catchers DJ Moore, Darnell Mooney, and Cole Kmet for a practice session at a Park Ridge high school last week.

The text linked the article pertaining to this story and the caption simply read, “It’s so hard to root against Fields!”

It’s true. The guy wants to win in Chicago and he’s doing everything that he can to build connections with his weapons.

I started thinking about what the expectations are for Justin Fields and his 2023 campaign. In previous articles, I’ve noted that I do believe Justin Fields will make that Year 3 jump that both Jalen Hurts and Josh Allen made. In terms of athletic ability, they are certainly comparable to Fields. Additionally, their respective team logistics surrounding the quarterback position (at the time of their Year 2 to Year 3 transition) is also similar.

So, I decided to do some math.

I didn’t want to say that Fields’ progression in his third year would exactly mirror either Allen or Hurts. It would be too easy (and unlikely) to say that since “Quarterback A” threw “X” more touchdowns in his third year, we can just add that same number to Fields’ Year 2 stats. Therefore, I took a more balanced approach that resulted in some interesting numbers.

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The Process

First, I wrote down the Year 2 and Year 3 stats for Josh Allen and Jalen Hurts. The following categories were evaluated: passing touchdowns, interceptions, passing yards, completion percentage, QBR, and rushing touchdowns.

Then, I calculated the percent increase (or decrease) for each stat for each quarterback from Year 2 to Year 3. For example, Josh Allen threw for 20 touchdowns in his second year and 37 in his third. The additional 17 touchdowns is an 85% increase in passing touchdowns for Allen. Hurts threw for 16 touchdowns in Year 2 and threw 22 in Year 3 – resulting in a 38% increase for that stat.

When I had all of the percentages for Allen and Hurts in each category, I averaged them. An 85% increase (Allen) and a 38% increase (Hurts) averages out to a 61.5% increase. I then took this averaged percentage to Fields’ Year 2 stats and applied it. Fields threw for 17 touchdowns in Year 2. A 61.5% increase on that would be 27 touchdowns in 2023. I rounded to the nearest half percent in applicable stats.

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The Results

I repeated this process for all of the previously mentioned statistics to get a rough idea of what we can possibly expect from Fields, should he make that third-year leap. Based on the math that was done, these were his projected 2023 statistics:

Passing TDs: 27

Intercetions: 10

Passing yards: 2,971

Rushing touchdowns: 9

Completion Percentage: 68.3

Quarterback Rating: 74.8

Is it a perfect method? No. However, the Eagles and Bills both built around their franchise quarterbacks as they ventured into Year 3. This is very similar to what the Bears are doing for Justin Fields. And there ’s no reason fans should have any doubt in a comparable upward trend.