With the Pittsburgh Steelers in the market for a quarterback in some capacity this offseason, PFF’s Brad Spielberger thinks the team could go shopping for a starter. Among his four trades to shake up the 2024 offseason, he has the Steelers sending a 2024 second-round pick and 2025 fifth-round pick to the Bears in exchange for Fields.
“Pittsburgh is one team looking for a legitimate competition at quarterback this offseason, with 2022 first-round quarterback Kenny Pickett not making the strides they’d hoped through two years, getting supplanted late in the season by third-stringer Mason Rudolph,” he writes. “Fields’ elite athleticism adds an entirely different dynamic to a Steelers offense that was quite stale in 2023, and he opens up the downfield passing game that has been lacking.”
If the Steelers bring in Fields, he’s not going to be “legitimate competition.” The Steelers aren’t parting with a second-round pick and a future fifth on top of it just for Fields to simply be competition for Pickett. That’s my first problem with this scenario. My second problem is it’s just simply not going to happen. The Steelers aren’t going to trade significant draft capital for Fields, who might not even be that much of an upgrade, and also then turn around and pick up his fifth-year option, an estimated $21.978 million for 2025.
I’m sure Fields to Pittsburgh will continue to be talked about. He’s a buzzy name and Adam Schefter tried to get the speculation going by talking about how much Mike Tomlin loves Fields. Tomlin might love Fields, but he’s not going to love spending nearly $22 million in 2025 on a player with a career 11-29 record and admitting that the Kenny Pickett experiment was a failure after just two seasons and just two starts with a non-Matt Canada offensive coordinator.
I don’t bring the Canada thing up to necessarily try and defend Pickett as I’m personally not all that high on him. But it’s another reason why the Steelers aren’t going to rush into the trade market to add someone like Fields. Pickett will have an opportunity to compete and give the team a look at what he potentially could do with a better play caller.
The Steelers are still going to add to the quarterback room, probably by signing a veteran like Rudolph or Ryan Tannehill and then drafting a rookie with a fourth QB added, either a veteran or an UDFA. But they aren’t going out and spending significant draft capital to acquire Fields and then pay him his fifth-year option, and they’re certainly not trading for him just to have him compete with Pickett.
In short, don’t pay attention to the Fields trade speculation when Pittsburgh is involved. It just goes so far against anything this team has shown itself to do and it would be a complete shock if the Steelers traded for Fields.
