The Pittsburgh Steelers scooped up two starting quarterbacks from the 2023 season and put them together in the same quarterback room to compete. Normally this is the recipe for a difficult dynamic within the room. I can’t tell you the number of times I have heard different members of the media use the phrase, “If you have two quarterbacks, you have none.” But with Justin Fields and Russell Wilson, things are starting off on a good foot.
“It’s been great,” Fields said after Thursday’s practice in a clip posted by YardBarker’s Aaron Becker on X. “Just learning from him every day, just how detailed he is with everything. Just how he works, just everything he does; the way he acts around his teammates.
“He’s been a great teammate to me. A great mentor to me. It’s awesome to have a guy like Russell in the room, and me get to learn from him and kind of pick his brain on some stuff for sure.”
#Steelers QB Justin Fields on learning from QB Russell Wilson.
“It’s been great just learning from him every day … the way he acts around his teammates. He’s been great. A great teammate to me. A great mentor to me.” pic.twitter.com/aEj1gL0DHS
— Aaron Becker (@Aaron_M_Becker) June 6, 2024
This competition is perhaps a little different than most. Wilson is a decade older than Fields and has a Super Bowl trophy to his name. Fields modeled his game after Wilson while he was playing at Ohio State. The two at least had some semblance of a relationship prior to becoming teammates and competitors with one another.
Fields stated that he did not join the team just to sit on the bench all season. He very much intends to compete, but it might be the perfect mentor-mentee pairing between the two because of their past history and the very clear and obvious track record difference between the two. It would be a little different if Fields was in here competing against somebody like Kenny Pickett, for instance.
Wilson has echoed a similar sentiment to Fields, saying that they are pushing each other and making each other better. He even endorsed the possibility of a specialized package for Fields. Most quarterbacks do not like the idea of being pulled off the field, whether they view it as a threat to their position or they simply don’t like getting knocked out of rhythm during a game.
Obviously, it is much easier to say such things now when the stakes are lower in the offseason. If and when Wilson struggles, things could become more tense, especially so if Fields succeeds in any possible specialized package. But for now, it seems like they are starting off in a great place with their relationship to each other.
