UA-59049186-1 2022 Week 4: Chicago Bears 12, New York Giants 20 - Good if it Goes

2022 Week 4: Chicago Bears 12, New York Giants 20

Pictured: Sam Mustipher

Player Grades

The grading scale goes from -3 to +3 for each play. Screens are graded as runs. Penalties are counted in whatever phase they were committed. Pre- and post-snap penalties are in the “Misc.” column. “Short” throws are 10 yards or less, “Medium” is 10-20, “Deep” is over 20. Everything else (scrambles, throwaways, reads, etc.) is under “Miscellaneous.” Parentheses in a column denote grades/snaps from the opposite side of the ball and are not included in grades/snaps from the player’s usual side. Snap counts are from Pro Football Reference. Box score and other relevant info can be found at that link as well.

After review, was Fields that bad?

He was not. He did some nice things in this one; stuff you can build upon. He was more confident in his throws and more patient and decisive…when the line allowed him to be, that is. He still had a couple instances where he took off too early and Mooney was absolutely as open as it looked on the TV broadcast on one of Fields’ scrambles. But, a lot of the time, he just had no chance. Because you know who was as bad as he looked live?

Mustipher?

Yep. -27 is a new record for futility in your author’s grading. Said grading goes back to 2016, and even though I only did two film posts last year, I have graded a lot of crap. And now Sam Mustipher reigns supreme. It was almost impressive how awful he was. Seven -3 plays; six pass and one run. Simply horrendous. I mean, look at this:

There were multiple plays just like this. I think Dan Orlovsky underrated Darnell Mooney, and there are some things we can evaluate Justin Fields on regardless of the utter lack of talent around him, but he’s 100% right that you can’t develop a quarterback like this. Anyway, that’s on tape now, so any defensive coordinator worth his salt now knows that you can get a free runner at Fields by breaking out that cross dog blitz or even just delaying a blitz, because it’s 100% gonna fool Mustipher. It is flat-out organizational malpractice to let him back on the field. I don’t care what you do – start Schofield at guard and Patrick at center, Rieff at tackle, kick Borom inside to LG, and Patrick to center, stick a jersey on a traffic cone. Don’t care which. At least the pass rushers have to go around the traffic cone. Maybe one of them would even trip on it. And if Catholic School Hroniss Grasu blocks me on Twitter for this, that’s fine – at least then I know he’s capable of blocking somebody.

Rough day for the draft class.

Gordon has another tough day in coverage, Brisker got fooled badly on a couple bootlegs, and Velus Jones effectively sealed the loss by muffing a punt. Banner day for Ryan “we’re gonna build through the draft” Poles.

How was the play calling?

Not great. Getsy really didn’t do a great job of getting Fields opportunities to make plays. To be clear, nobody but Mooney really did a good job of getting open with any sort of consistency, but no adjustments were made to make the Giants’ secondary really work. Let’s look at this play:

Aldo Gandia of the Barroom Network (my old boss, hi Aldo!) suggested that Fields could’ve thrown Kmet open. He could have…except for that wheel route coming out of the backfield. If Herbert’s on a flat instead of a wheel, the space is there to try to throw Kmet open. That said, if the line holds up, he can try Mooney or St. Brown, so it’s not entirely Getsy’s fault.

I didn’t think Roquan played that well.

I get that, but during grading, I thought more than a couple plays that I could envision folks being less than enthused with were the fault of the guys up front. The defensive line graded out anywhere from mediocre to flat-out lousy against the run. I get that if he wants the money he wants, he can’t expect the D-line to be outstanding, but I do think it’s fair to expect basic competence. This was not that.

What does this mean going forward?

Jaylon Johnson is doubtful for Sunday, so go ahead and hammer the over on Justin Jefferson receiving yards. This one looks like it’s gonna be rough, but the Bears have played the Vikings well the last few years and Kirk Cousins struggled with Matt Eberflus’ system when he was in Indy, so maybe there’s a chance.

Monsters

BoJack, Roquan, Morrow, Whitehair (get well soon!), Mooney

Chipmunks

Mustipher, Patrick in the pass game, Mustipher, Gordon, Mustipher, Pennel, Mustipher, Muhammad, Mustipher, Quinn, Mustipher, Robinson against the run, Mustipher, Mustipher, Mustipher

Four Stars of the Game

4star Eddie Jackson

3star  Darnell Mooney

2star  Roquan Smith

1star  Cody Whitehair

Twitter: @KevinSports312

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