Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin hasn’t had the best of worlds at the quarterback position in recent years. But once again they were in the playoff mix last season. Heading into 2024, Tomlin made a statement about the quarterback competition with two guys fighting for reps.
When asked by ESPN NFL reporter Brooke Pryor if Russell Wilson still has the upper hand over Justin Fields, Tomlin said, “Nothing has changed.”
So how are they handling reps?
“Very carefully,” Tomlin said. “You think I'm actually going to back myself into corner so you guys are gonna ask me daily about the rep allocations. No way. I've been on the job too long for that.”
What kind of waves will Steelers' QB Justin Fields stir up?
Certainly the hype train has arrived in the Steel City. And it's understandable with the quarterback woes the Steelers have endured since Ben Roethlisberger retired after the 2021 season.
The 11th overall pick in 2021 by the Chicago Bears, Fields has 38 games as a starter under his belt. What he doesn’t have is success. His career record of 10-28-0 speaks volumes.
Statistically, Fields has completed 60 percent of his passes with 40 touchdowns and 30 interceptions. But it’s more than passing for Fields, who rushed for 1,143 yards in 2022 with eight touchdowns. He slipped to 657 yards and four scores last year in two fewer games.
As for Wilson, he started his career as one of the NFL’s best. And perhaps one coaching decision prevented him from becoming a back-to-back Super Bowl champion. Wilson led the Seattle Seahawks to double-digit wins eight times in his first nine seasons, and they were 9-7 the other year.
However, the bubble burst with Wilson posting a record of 17-27 over the last three seasons. Also, he hit a career low with 3,070 yards passing in 2023.
But one unwanted statistic these quarterbacks have in common is taking too many sacks. They stood at the top of the most-sacked list over the last two seasons. Wilson suffered 100 takedowns while Fields got toppled 99 times. Furthermore, they are the only quarterbacks sacked more than 80 times over that span, according to ESPN.
So what’s the issue? Bad offensive lines played a role, but also Fields had the slowest average time to throw (3.23 seconds) according to NFL Next Gen stats. The second slowest? Wilson with a mark of 3.06 seconds.
With all things being equal, these numbers might actually tilt in Fields’ favor. First, Wilson has been a sack magnet every since he stepped into the league. He’s been dropped 527 time in a 12-year career.
And that’s the thing. All of those sacks have likely taken their toll on the 35-year-old Wilson. Fields is almost 11 years younger. He could take a little beating or two and still hang around.
Can Wilson hold off the youthful Fields?
Wilson told James Palmer of the NFL Network his decline in Denver came about partly because of a 2022 injury.
“I think it's all about how you look at it,” Wilson said. “In life, a lot of times when things don't go your way, you can look at it as disappointing (or) you can look at it as growth moments. For me, my first year (in Denver) I had my lat. I was playing on it, pushing through it. Should I have done that? You know, you compete every day. You got to do what you got to do. Everything didn't go our way. This past year, I felt like myself again. I felt like myself again, so I can't wait to just put on the cleats and go after it.”
NFL Network’s David Carr told athlonsports.com he believes it’s a true competition for the top spot.
“I think it’s a real competition because you don’t necessarily (know) where Justin Fields is at, like where his headspace is,” Carr said. “How does he feel coming into this thing? If we get the physically dominant athlete that we’ve seen with Justin, I believe he has some untapped potential for throwing the football. I think that in this Arthur Smith offense, the ability of Russ, the experience, I don’t know if it necessarily matters as much as maybe it would somewhere else on other teams.”
The Steelers got Wilson on the cheap. He will make just $1.2 million in 2024 with the Denver Broncos forking out a $39 million buyout. So that made financial sense, and trading for Fields made organizational sense. The Steelers sent a conditional sixth-round pick to the Bears, who drafted quarterback Caleb Williams at No. 1 overall.
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