QB Justin Fields only played three series in the Pittsburgh Steelers’ preseason opener loss, but in the first two drives, Fields and center Nate Herbig had snap issues, causing two fumbles. After the Steelers’ 20-12 loss, Mike Tomlin said that both Fields and Herbig are responsible for the miscues, calling them “unacceptable.”
“I thought [Fields] did some nice things, but obviously he was a component of the [center-quarterback] exchange. And from my perspective, that’s dual responsibility on the center and the quarterback. It negated a lot of good things going on in those first couple drives,” Tomlin said in his post-game press conference via Steelers.com.. “You get behind the chains, particularly in the early stages before you gain real cohesion and have enough of a menu to get you out of them circumstances, you’re a dead group. So the [center-quarterback] exchanges were an issue.
“I don’t know what happened. I hadn’t talked to any of the parties involved in terms of assessing blame or assessing the ramifications of the center exchange. We start our practices with it, and so it’s unacceptable.”
Fields addressed the issues with the snaps in his postgame press conference.
“Snapping part, we just gotta be on the same page, I’ll put that on me to just be in the same page,” he said via Chris Adamski of TribLive on Twitter.
Snap issues can be drive killers. For the Steelers, it turned a 1st and 10 at the Houston 47 into a 2nd and 14 on the opening drive, and Pittsburgh never recovered, stalling after the fumble. The second fumble, turned into a 4-yard gain when FB Jack Colletto recovered it, but that’s not something that’s going to happen often. Whatever the issues are with the snaps, they need to get sorted out, especially with both Fields and Herbig fighting for starting spots.
Pittsburgh drafted Zach Frazier with an eye on making him its starting center, but so far, Herbig has held him off. But the issues on the exchange aren’t going to help him win the job, and for Fields, it’s not doing him any favors when it comes to trying to beat out Russell Wilson for QB1. The fact that Fields didn’t lead any scoring drives isn’t going to help his cause, either, and that may have gone differently had the first series fumble not happened.
It’s going to be a point of emphasis this week to make sure that those issues with the snap don’t happen again. If they do, it’s going to reflect poorly on Herbig and Fields.
