The prospect of the Pittsburgh Steelers playing both Russell Wilson and Justin Fields holds a lot of traction lately. At least, people who talk about sports for a living have been discussing it quite a bit lately. Multiple national reporters have even reported on it assertively, regarding a package for Fields.
But the local media seems less convinced of the idea that the Steelers have any such intention. In fact, Mark Kaboly of The Athletic doesn’t see it happening, essentially, at all. Appearing on 93.7 The Fan on Wednesday, Joe Starkey asked him about an over/under on Justin Fields recording 4.5 touches per game. He took the under, and then took the under on 1.5 touches per game as well.
In other words, don’t expect to see Fields touch the ball more than once a game, if he ever does.
“Until I see it, I don’t believe it”, he said. “I haven’t seen anything that would suggest that right now”. Of course, the Steelers were never likely to experiment with a Justin Fields package during OTAs, so that’s not surprising.
But the idea of using Fields as a situational option is rooted in his athleticism, yet their presumed starter is also capable of moving around. Sure, Fields’ athleticism is on a whole other level compared to Russell Wilson. But the latter can move around just fine—at least I hope so, at his age. That is the crux of Kaboly’s argument against it.
“I think Russell Wilson is pretty good in situations in the goal line, in the red zone, and you don’t want to turn the ball over there”, he said. “And that’s the biggest issue with Fields and the biggest thing the Steelers want to avoid this year”.
Justin Fields has 38 charged fumbles against him during his career, though that number benefits from some context. That number includes all sorts of interactions including botched handoffs. If you actually look through his list of fumbles, you don’t see a guy who’s just loose with the football.
It’s worth noting that Russell Wilson has 103 career fumbles charged against him as well. That pales in comparison to Fields’ numbers on a per-year basis, granted, but it’s a big-sounding number. The point is to illustrate that quarterbacks are charged fumbles for instances that you don’t normally consider. A botched handoff is frequently more on the runner than the quarterback, for example, but the quarterback takes the blame.
But introducing another variable does increase the odds of something going wrong. There’s a reason that teams do not regularly swap out their quarterback. He is the guy who typically plays every single snap of the season, unless something goes wrong.
The whole discussion is understandable, though, in the context of the Steelers’ quarterback room. Russell Wilson is past his prime and faces questions about his remaining abilities. Justin Fields is young and his speed and running ability are genuinely remarkable. You are going to feel a compulsion to try to exploit that to give the offense an edge it needs. That still doesn’t necessarily make a Fields package a wise choice.
