Pittsburgh Steelers QB Justin Fields went 5-of-6 for 67 yards in Pittsburgh’s preseason opener against the Houston Texans, but the story of the night for Fields was two fumbled snaps on bad exchanges between him and C Nate Herbig. Still, offensive coordinator Arthur Smith thought that other than the bad snaps, it was a good night for Fields.
“I thought he was decisive. He threw a great ball to Van [Jefferson]. I thought when we got out of our own way, he operated pretty well,” Smith said via Aaron Becker of Yardbarker on Twitter.
Fields’ throw to Jefferson was a pretty ball on a modified sail concept. It was his best throw of the night.
Smith acknowledged that it doesn’t matter where the fault lies with the exchange issues and that they need to be fixed, but he still thought Fields was good besides that.
“Other than the C-QB issues, it doesn’t matter who’s fault it is, they happen, we got to get it clean up, whether it’s quarterback center, we can’t have that, but other than that, I thought he operated pretty well.”
The exchange issues were a problem as were two sacks Fields took that probably could’ve been avoided. It led to some criticism from Chase Daniel and Dan Orlovsky, two former NFL quarterbacks-turned-analysts who had been pretty pro-Fields for much of training camp. But when it came to actually throwing the ball, Fields did do a solid job. The problem is looking at the day as a whole, it wasn’t as pretty of a picture when you factored in the other issues.
Russell Wilson could play on Saturday in Pittsburgh’s second preseason game against Buffalo, and it’ll be good to see how he runs the offense. Fields is more than likely going to be Pittsburgh’s backup to open the season, so while his performance was up and down, that’s more or less what should be expected out of a backup quarterback. The two fumbles were the biggest issues though, as that’s just something that can’t happen between the quarterback and center. The first one ended up killing Pittsburgh’s drive and led to a punt.
It’s something that Fields will have to clean up on Saturday, and if Wilson does play, it’ll be the first time we can compare the two in a stadium environment against a different opponent other than Pittsburgh’s defense. If Fields can clean up his mistakes and continue to throw the ball well, he’ll set himself up just fine as Pittsburgh’s backup and potentially look to earn favor as an option for the team’s quarterback of the future.
It’s clear Smith was impressed by what he saw out of Fields’ arm, and we’ll see if Fields can put together a more complete performance on Saturday.
