Justin Fields Broke Down Film Of Him Torching Jaire Alexander
Justin Fields has a lot to prove this year for the Chicago Bears. One of the biggest is finally beating the Green Bay Packers. He is 0-4 against the Bears’ arch-rivals since entering the league in 2021. His ugly 70.7 passer rating across those four games played a big part. The upcoming opener at Soldier Field marks the best opportunity he’s had to date. Aaron Rodgers is gone. Chicago’s roster is younger, faster, and deeper than it’s been in years. Fields himself is more experienced and settled into a familiar offensive system.
If the Bears are going to win, their quarterback must do it with his arm. That won’t be easy. Green Bay had one of the best pass defenses in the league last season. A big part of that was Pro Bowl cornerback Jaire Alexander. He had five interceptions last year, two coming at Fields’ expense. Unsurprisingly, this has led the quarterback to study lots of film on how Alexander plays. The most recent game between the two teams saw Fields get his first real big play against the cornerback. All of it came from learning the tendencies on tape. Fields spoke with Kevin Fishbain of The Athletic about the play during a film review.
It is apparent right away how much the quarterback has studied.
“Once I saw this safety tight, this was kind of an alert, and then we call that route a ‘dingo,’ and he’s just releasing and running a go route,” Fields said. “Alerted it. If that wasn’t there and we didn’t get the coverage we wanted, like if it was Cover 3, then we would’ve just worked this concept right here, this shallow cross.”
In the scouting report, Fields knew Packers cornerback Jaire Alexander likes to sit and jump routes. He’s one of the best in the business at doing so.
“I don’t know if you remember, late in this game, EQ had a deep curl route and Jaire picked it off,” Fields said. “We should have done the same thing on him twice.”
To counter Alexander’s play style, Fields wanted to go over the top against him.
“EQ does a great job of getting on Jaire’s toes there,” Getsy said. “He’s running a go route on Jaire. We’re just reading the leverage. We knew that he was going to be pretty square-shouldered, so EQ had to win with speed.”
“Boom, you see how he’s widening a bit on his stem?” Fields said. “Right when I see him do that right there, I know he’s staying on this angle, and at this point, it’s just gauging his speed and putting it right there. If Jaire was sitting inside, he has the freedom to outside release that.”
Alexander’s wide leverage sent St. Brown inside. Fields saw the safety wouldn’t be deep, so he had his receiver one-on-one. He took another second to see St. Brown’s angle to know where to put the ball.
Justin Fields now knows what not to do with Alexander.
Last season proved the Pro Bowler is at his most dangerous when you test him with curls or out patterns. He has the instincts and closing speed necessary to cut into passing lanes. Fields got burned twice in those exact situations. Teams have had far more success against Alexander when testing him deep. He allowed a healthy 11.7 yards per completion last year. His ball skills have made up for such problems, but it proves the cornerback is far from invincible. There are ways to exploit his playing style.
Now, he won’t have the luxury of playing receivers like Equanimeous St. Brown, Byron Pringle, and Dante Pettis. He’ll be seeing lots of D.J. Moore, Chase Claypool, and Darnell Mooney in this game. In their past two meetings, Moore alone has torched Alexander for five catches on six targets for 98 yards. It will come down to Justin Fields being smarter about where and when to attack the Packers cornerback. Getting too aggressive will lead to mistakes. He must wait for the right situation.
Based on his growing library of tape study, he’s well-versed in knowing when to pull the trigger. It will be exciting to see where his progress is this Sunday.