Will the best quarterback of the 2021 draft class please stand up?

What a difference half a season makes. Fields began the season as the worst quarterback in football, doing little with the small amount of pass plays the Bears’ offense ran.

Ever since an ugly 12-7 Thursday night loss to Washington, Fields has been electric as head coach Matt Eberflus finally developed a game plan that harnesses all of Fields’ best qualities.

He set an NFL record for rushing yards by a QB in a single game in the team’s 35-32 loss to Miami on Sunday. 

He earned the respect of Dolphins’ linebacker Jaelan Phillips.

Despite the loss, Fields is trending upward for the first time in his NFL career.

The same can’t be said for his peers in the 2021 draft class.

The sophomore slump has been real for Mac Jones. He entered the season looking like the best QB of the class after leading the Patriots to the playoffs in his first season. In six starts in 2022, he leads all second-year signal callers in completion percentage (66.1) but has thrown four touchdowns to seven interceptions.

Among qualified passers, Jones’ passer rating of 76.0 is better than only rookie Kenny Pickett (66.8) and fellow 2021 first-round pick Zach Wilson (75.5).

The jury is still out on Trey Lance after the San Francisco 49ers’ first-round pick was injured in Week 2 and will miss the remainder of the regular season.

That leaves first-overall pick Trevor Lawrence as the only real challenger to Fields. His passer rating (87.5) is only slightly better than Fields (85.0) but when factoring in Fields’ ability as a runner — as the QBR metric does — Fields (55.1) ranks higher than Lawrence (50.9), per Pro Football Reference. 

Fields is playing better than any quarterback drafted in 2021. Will it last? That remains to be seen. Things change in a hurry in the NFL — Fields’ in-season resurgence is a testament to that. No one thought Fields would be in this conversation after the first couple of weeks of the season. Now that he is, he could run away with it.