Fields for a sixth is a way better deal than Howell for whatever combo of downgrading our picks it was. Anyone saying otherwise is once again falling in love with our bad backup.
Sorry, nah. Let's say you considered them approximately equal in terms of talent (which wouldn't be nuts since they were both pretty much bottom 5-10 in every major rating metric), there is so much more downside here with Fields.
1) Fields only has 1-year left on his contract and costs much more.
2) Fields is older.
3) Fields has started for 3 seasons now and has shown basically no improvement at all.
4) What's wrong with Fields seems to be much more intractable than what's wrong with Howell. Howell's issue is that he hasn't adjusted to the speed of the NFL game and needs to understand his limitations as an athlete at this level. That can (potentially) be coached. Fields is still elite as athlete at the NFL level and it simply doesn't matter because he cannot process defenses to save his life.
5) Even if you view both guys purely as backups, Howell works for that so much better than Fields. Howell's style of play is much more analogous to Geno's. Fields would require a completely different playbook.
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I am in no way 'falling in love' with our bad backup. I just see things like this: I think Howell is bad but still has potential and actually makes sense as Geno's backup. I think Fields is bad, he's going to stay that way, and would be a poor choice to be Geno's backup.
