The Pittsburgh Steelers offense has struggled to start the preseason, and with presumed starting QB Russell Wilson making his preseason debut on Saturday but failing to put points on the board, there’s once again concern that the Steelers won’t have good quarterback play. Appearing on ESPN Radio’s Unsportsmanlike, NFL analyst Jeff Darlington said that we have to consider the possibility that Wilson and Justin Fields will play the same way they did in Denver and Chicago and struggle.
“I think that we were very optimistic this offseason that the Steelers would figure out their quarterback situation with one of these two guys, dismissing the possibility that maybe what they were doing with their previous teams is a better indicator of what they’re going to do in the future. We’ll see. It’s still so early.”
Wilson actually had a pretty solid season last year, one that would’ve been an upgrade over the production Pittsburgh got from their quarterback room, while Fields had flashes but ultimately was inconsistent. For the most part, Wilson’s tenure in Denver was a failure, while Fields was never able to put it all together in Chicago. On top of that, they were among the most-sacked quarterbacks in the league, and while the majority of the blame has fallen on Pittsburgh’s offensive line, both Fields and Wilson have been under pressure and brought down a number of times in the preseason.
The sacks are probably the biggest worry right now when looking at Fields and Wilson, because they’ve both been fine when it comes to throwing the ball, but they’ve gotten behind schedule due to the sacks which has hurt their ability to put points on the board. With Pittsburgh’s offensive line having it’s fair share of struggles, the totality of the blame shouldn’t be placed on the quarterbacks either, but it’s worrisome that sacks have now been an issue with the first-team offense in both preseason games.
That absolutely has to be cleaned up for the Steelers to find regular-season success. At the same time though, I don’t really think reading into the preseason performance is generally worthwhile, because the Steelers looked like they had one of the best offenses in the league during the preseason last year, and it was a group that fell flat when the season actually started. There are plenty of things you can take away from the preseason, though, and so far, there haven’t been a lot of good things to take away from the offense, but I’m not too caught up in worrying about the group’s struggles.
If pass protection improves going forward, I do think the offense and the quarterback room will be just fine, but Pittsburgh’s offensive line and Pat Meyer really has to work to make sure that the protection does indeed get better by Week 1.
