As a rookie, Bears quarterback Justin Fields struggled with taking sacks.
Fields had the league’s highest sack rate among qualified passers by a significant margin. He was sacked 36 times, getting taken down on 11.8 percent of his dropbacks. Jets rookie Zach Wilson had the second-highest rate at 10.3 percent. Though Joe Burrow was sacked a league-high 50 times, his rate was 8.9 percent.
So, learning to get rid of the ball faster is a priority for Fields as he heads into his second season. His new head coach, Matt Eberflus, has talked about that since he was hired in January. At the start of the offseason program on Tuesday, Fields discussed it, too.
“There’s stuff in the film last year where you could see that, of course, there were some instances where it was my fault that I got sacked,” Fields said, via Courtney Cronin of ESPN. “At the end of the day, it just comes to limiting those mistakes and getting the ball out and not taking those sacks.”
One element of his game that Fields has already been working on is changing the foot he uses on his dropbacks from shotgun.
“Last year I had my right foot forward in the gun so I’ve been working a lot on having my left foot forward in the gun,” Fields said.
Whether or not that helps Fields get rid of the ball faster remains to be seen. But because taking fewer sacks is an offseason area of focus, Fields should be in a better spot to handle pressure when it comes in 2022.
