“He’s the best high school player I’ve ever seen, and I coached Cam Newton.”
A simple quote from a Georgia high school football coach relayed to ESPN’s Bomoni Jones on his podcast “The Right Time” really tells us everything we need to know about Justin Fields. Just take a minute and try to remember how dominant Cam Newton was during his MVP season with the Carolina Panthers, and how he just overwhelmed defenses at Auburn during the greatest single season in college history. Now just try and picture Cam in high school and some poor sophomore doing everything he can to not end up on Cam’s highlight tape.
I went back and watched some of Newton’s high school highlights. He’s pretty remarkable, like a mix between Ben Roethlisberger and Michael B. Jordan’s character in Friday Night Lights. He appears to be the biggest, strongest, and fastest player on the field all the time. The future Heisman winner, number one overall pick, and NFL MVP looked every bit the part in high school.
Justin Fields was BETTER, and quite frankly immeasurably better. There is no hyperbole that can do justice to just how exceptional Fields was in high school (here’s the tape). All through high school Fields was neck and neck with Trevor Lawrence for best player in the country, and finished high school as the eighth best recruit ever according to 247 sports. One of his first offers came from Harvard, which gives you a glimpse of how bright Fields actually is, even outside of football.
Now at the end of the day it doesn’t ultimately matter how good Fields (or anyone was in high school), but it’s not nothing either. Fields was the most talented player ever to come to Georgia, and the best quarterback since Matthew Stafford, really ever. For some reason that I’ll go to my grave not understanding, Georgia coach Kirby Smart decided to start Jake Fromm instead of Justin Fields during Field’s first year in college.
Fields transferred to Ohio State and won two BIG 10 championships and made the playoffs twice with the Buckeyes. His shining moment at Ohio State, though, was when he first got on campus and followed the sister of incumbent Buckeye quarterback Tate Martell on instagram but didn’t follow Tate.
Ever since Fields started high school basically he was back and forth with Clemson quarterback Trevor Lawrence as the number one player in the country. They both finished as the number one and number two player in the country in high school, depending on which recruiting service you use. They played each other in the National Semifinals two years in a row and went 1-1, with Fields helping Ohio State dismantle Clemson this season, including maybe the best throw I’ve ever seen.
Fast forward to today and it’s like no one has ever seen Justin Fields play. Everyone has forgotten that we’ve all known how incredibly talented he is for about five years already. He’s been the best player on essentially every football field he’s been on since he was sixteen, and all of the sudden everyone is looking trying to find reasons he won’t succeed in the NFL so that they can be the smartest person in the room. But in Fields’ case it shouldn’t be complicated. Why try to play chess when playing checkers will get the job done?
Fields posted a 93.6 PFF grade in 2020, third best in the country. Fields completed 70% of his passes last season while only ranking 85th in the number of screen passes thrown (Mac Jones and Trevor Lawrence were number one and number two respectively). In 2019, his last full season, he accounted for fifty-one touchdowns at Ohio State. All the dude does is produce insane numbers and a lot of wins, he went 20-2 during his time at Ohio State
Actually, he does much more than that. Remember the rib injury he had while manhandling Clemson in the Sugar Bowl? He never got enough credit for how hurt he actually was. In an article for Sports Illustrated, he told Ross Dellinger that his whole right side from his hip all the way through his torso was in pain and he had to get a couple shots before going back in.
“Even throwing 10 yards, it would hurt,” Fields said, “It’s the game of football we play. I signed up for it.”
On a night where he was in pain throwing just ten yards down the field he threw for 385. He has a motor and a level of mental toughness that just cannot be faked. He literally checks every box. There might be guys who do some things better than him, but Fields does absolutely everything well. His teammates and coaches rave about him as a leader, he’s driven in every aspect of his life, as competitive as any player in the draft class, and he’s also just a really good football player.
We’re all going to look back and wonder why we were so quick to try and poke holes instead of recognizing the generational talent that Fields is.
-By Jake Cowden
Photo: Derick E. Hingle-USA TODAY Sports