There was a lot of excitement around Justin Fields’ first in-game action with the Pittsburgh Steelers, but things didn’t exactly go great. Fields wasn’t terrible, but some of the mistakes that held him back in Chicago were again present. Beyond two botched exchanges, the most obvious problem was being sacked twice. In three years of play, Fields has been sacked 135 times and while some of those are the offensive line’s fault, many can also be attributed to him. Based on that issue, former NFL linebacker Bart Scott makes an unfortunate comparison.
Appearing on ESPN’s Get Up, Scott compared Fields to Tim Tebow, whom he was teammates with while members of the New York Jets.
“This guy continuously burps the baby,” Scott said. “I hate for my friend Tim Tebow to take strays, but that reminds me of Tim Tebow in practice. You just can’t do that. When a play breaks down, you burp the baby like that. You put the offensive tackles in a bind. Guys give up sacks and they’re losing their career basically because you’re burping the baby back there.”
When Scott says Fields is burping the baby, what he means is that the quarterback is patting the ball while waiting to throw, taking too much time to process what he’s seeing. That’s been a big knock against Fields since he entered the league. He’s struggled to trust what he sees on the field, which unfortunately leads to holding on to the ball for too long and taking sacks.
Scott continued to explain his comparison of Fields to Tebow later in the show.
“It reminds me of Tim Tebow. We talk about burping the baby and how long it takes you to process,” he said. “Waiting until a receiver’s open in the NFL, you have to throw the receivers open in anticipation. He doesn’t throw in process with great anticipation, which causes his offensive line protection to breakdown, which causes him to kind of scatter within the pocket.
“Ball security, job security, 38 fumbles since entering the NFL, it’s five more than any other player. It’s not acceptable.”
None of that is good for Fields. Aside from shocking the Steelers in a playoff game, Tebow wasn’t a good NFL quarterback. All the problems Scott just listed were major reasons why Tebow couldn’t cut it in the NFL, and they are legitimate issues for Fields too.
That isn’t to say Fields and Tebow are the same player. When looking at the sacks he took against the Houston Texans, it could be said that they weren’t all Fields’ fault.
On the first sack, Fields really doesn’t have anywhere to go with the ball. All of the receivers at the start of his progression either aren’t open or look like they’re going to run into each other. By the time he can get back to trying to dump the ball off to the running back, defenders are all over him. Maybe someone ran the wrong route, WR George Pickens and TE Pat Freiermuth are bunched up, but it’s tough to totally blame this one on Fields.
The second sack is a better example of what Scott is talking about. Here, you can see Fields turn to look to his right, but most of the receivers aren’t open. You could argue that he could try to fit the ball to Calvin Austin III, but the defender is in good position. The protection isn’t fantastic either, but Fields takes a second too long to process.
If he had worked through his progressions a little quicker, he could have found Van Jefferson getting open on the left side.
It is frustrating to watch because Fields is so much more talented than Tebow. He is a good passer, but he just needs to work on refining his game. These are fixable issues, and he’s spent the summer working to correct them.
He’s also extremely gifted as a runner, which should allow him to work his way out of these sacks more. He just needs to keep his eyes downfield when he runs, rather than just immediately scrambling to pick up whatever yardage he can.
Tebow and Fields aren’t the same player, but they do share a common issue. In Tebow’s first year starting, he was sacked 33 times and fumbled 13 times. Not being able to process quick enough can kill a quarterback’s career. Peyton Manning and Tom Brady were so effective for so long because they were able to process what they saw on the field faster than anyone else.
This is only a small sample size for Fields with the Steelers though, and it could be argued the first sack wasn’t his fault. The next preseason game should shed more light on the situation. One thing Mike Tomlin won’t tolerate is turning the ball over, so if Fields continues to struggle to process, takes sacks, and fumbles, Russell Wilson will win the starting job.
