While many who read Steelers Depot or are even a true fan of the team have bigger things on their minds, the national media and ESPN will be focused on one Steelers-related story this offseason – the quarterback battle between Russell Wilson and Justin Fields.
But the question of who will win the positional battle should be prefaced by another question, is there even a quarterback battle in the first place? Sure, if Russell Wilson looks like he forgot how to throw a football when he puts a Steelers helmet on, Justin Fields will start, but that doesn’t make it a battle to me. If Fields looks good and Wilson looks bad, will that be enough?
Steelers insider Ray Fittipaldo was on The Joe Starkey Show on 93.7 The Fan earlier this week, and talked about how he believes that this may not be a true battle after all.
“A lot of it has to do with agents and what they feed to the national reporters. I think Justin Fields’ agent people to believe that Justin is in this and that he’s still a viable quarterback on the open market.” Fittipaldo said. “Whatever happens this year, whether he’s sitting on the bench all season I think his agent wants to keep his name hot. It’s only natural for your rep to do this. Part of this is on the Steelers too, right? Because [Wilson and Fields] are both only signed to one-year contracts.”
It’s impossible to know what exactly is going on behind closed doors – but this theory and perspective makes a lot of logical sense. Let’s break it down.
Russell Wilson can say all he wants about how he needs to earn the starting position, or that he wants whoever is best for the team to play, but the man wants to play football and thinks he still has it. And he seemingly has enough value around the league that if the Steelers didn’t promise him the starting role, someone else could have.
Now look at Justin Fields. He was the talk of the town before he got traded, and media pundits predicted he could fetch a second-round pick. He ended up going for a sixth-round pick that could turn into a fourth. And here we are going into the season, hearing media pundits say that it’s a real quarterback battle. Are we just falling for the same type of hype piece from Fields’ team? It’s very possible.
Is it impossible for Fields to win the job coming out of camp? No, crazier things have happened. But it’s hard for me to get behind it being a ‘battle’ in the colloquial definition of the word. Well – unless your version of a battle involves one guy getting a suit of armor and a sword and the other guy having to fight with his bare hands. I just don’t see how they could possibly be on equal playing fields right now – no pun intended.
