Russell Wilson entered training camp in the pole position for the Pittsburgh Steelers starting quarterback job, but a calf injury suffered while pushing a sled in the conditioning test the night before the first day of practice has created a great opportunity for Justin Fields.
So far, through the first three days of training camp, Wilson has been on the shelf, and Fields has been QB1 for the Steelers under head coach Mike Tomlin and new offensive coordinator Arthur Smith.
Though he’s had some struggles, Fields has flashed quite a bit and is generating quite a bit of buzz.
There has been so much buzz, in fact, that ESPN’s Dan Graziano is reporting that the Steelers are “open-minded” about Fields winning the starting quarterback job in what is seemingly shaping up to be a quarterback competition in Latrobe.
“Fields definitely has work to do to catch Wilson in the race for the starting job, but the Steelers are open-minded about his ability to do so,” Graziano writes for ESPN.com Sunday morning. “The important thing to keep in mind here is that the Steelers have no prior connection to either of these quarterbacks and no compelling financial commitment that would lead them to favor one over the other.
“So when they say it’s an open competition and Fields has a chance, believe them.”
The Steelers haven’t exactly said it’s an open competition between the two and haven’t really treated it that way prior to training camp. Throughout the offseason, Wilson got the majority of first-team reps, getting acclimated to the new offensive scheme under Smith and taking charge of his new team.
Even entering training camp, Tomlin stated to reporters that “nothing’s changed” regarding the quarterback situation and that he would “very carefully” manage reps at the quarterback position.
But Wilson’s injury has changed some things, and to Fields’ credit, he’s answered the bell when the opportunity has knocked.
While Fields hasn’t been as good as some of the clips circulating on social media have portrayed, he’s been solid and rather intriguing. Steelers Depot’s Alex Kozora summarized Fields’ first two days of practice nicely on Saturday morning, providing great balance to the discussion.
With Wilson still sidelined, though, Graziano believes the competition is opening, and Fields is complicating things.
“Long way to go on this, of course. And while Wilson has clearly been a diminished player the past two years, Fields has his own flaws,” Graziano writes of the QB situation in Pittsburgh. “But the early camp development that has Wilson sitting out while Fields takes the first-team reps certainly has added a wrinkle to the race.”
We’ll see what happens moving forward, but for now, we need to wait and see when Wilson returns and how he looks before really starting to buy into it being a competition, even with the Steelers having no financial incentive for either quarterback beyond this season, at least at the moment.
It could be quite the heated summer — in a good way from a competition standpoint — in Latrobe for the Black and Gold.
