Stop it. Justin Fields isn’t better than Trevor Lawrence

Though some at Pro Football Focus are saying that there is a great debate to be had, the truth is that no QB prospect is better than Trevor Lawrence.

The two top quarterbacks in the nation coming into the 2020 season are Trevor Lawrence and Justin Fields, in that order.

Both Lawrence and Fields are absolutely talented and intriguing prospects as we look ahead to the 2021 NFL Draft, but Pro Football Focus is going against the grain that Lawrence should be considered the No. 1 overall prospect in next year’s draft.

"“Justin Fields should be ahead of Trevor Lawrence,” Pro Football Focus said, according to 247 Sports. “He’s graded better, he’s graded better in pro like situations. He’s six-foot-three, it’s not like he’s some shrimpy guy that no one’s ever heard of. Justin Fields ahead of Trevor Lawrence.They both project to be better than Tua (Tagovailoa) and a little bit less than (Joe) Burrow, but of course Burrow had the senior year that none of them have had yet. So for right now, it’s Fields then Lawrence and then, if Tua were in next year’s draft, he’d be third.”"

While any analyst can say things like this, they at some point have to look at the facts and what happened on the field of play. Big Ten defenses are not pro-like in any shape or form and Ohio State- just like Clemson- has a clear advantage week-in and week-out. No one can say for any certainty that Justin Fields grades better than Trevor Lawrence in ‘pro-like situations.’

You want to know what a ‘pro-like situation’ would be? Maybe a CFB Playoff game between two teams with tons of NFL talent? If only we had something like that to compare…

Oh wait, we do.

Against what some considered to be the best defense in the history of Ohio State football, Trevor Lawrence was the lone offensive attack for Clemson. Lawrence passed for 259 yards and two touchdowns with no interceptions. He finished the night with a 92.0 adjusted QB rating and also rushed for 107 yards and a touchdown.

Fields- throwing 46 times compared to Lawrence’s 33- had 320 yards and one touchdown pass to two interceptions. He finished with an adjusted QB rating of 88.3.

For those that don’t remember the game, maybe the proof of what we’re talking about happened on the last two drives of the game. Trevor Lawrence led Clemson on a 4-play, 94 yard drive in just 1:18 that resulted in the game-winning touchdown. Fields threw an interception in the end zone as Ohio State was trying to answer late in the game.

Outside of the ridiculous ‘pro-like situation grade,’ analysts are acting as if Lawrence fell off or somehow was less-than-stellar over the course of the season. People like to forget after he threw those interceptions, he held the nation’s longest streak of passing attempts without an interception.

By the way, he finished the year completing 65.8 percent of his passes for 3,665 yards and 36 touchdowns to eight interceptions. He had a QB rating of 166.7 for the year. All of those stats- other than the interceptions- were better than his freshman season despite the narrative that Lawrence somehow had a ‘sophomore slump.’

This post isn’t to say that Justin Fields isn’t a great prospect. It’s not to say that he won’t be an elite quarterback at the next level because I truly believe he will. It’s also not to say that Trevor Lawrence is a finished product or that he doesn’t have areas that he needs to work on and improve, because he does- and he’d be the first to admit that, by the way.

But for a site that prides itself on being one of the top tools for talent analysis to come out and make such a strong statement with no major sources indicating anything of the sort, it says a lot about the lack of awareness for how good Trevor Lawrence truly is.