While the Pittsburgh Steelers seem almost certain to start Russell Wilson over Justin Fields in Week 1 against the Atlanta Falcons, there is another more interesting question. Who should they start. Taking the reality out of the equation, is the national media’s voice had its say, who would they start?
I’ve collected the opinions of 22 of the most notable national analysts on television as every personality, show, podcast, and channel has discussed Wilson versus Fields over the past month. Below are the two camps – those who think Wilson should start and those who believe Fields should be the guy. That’s based off either an explicit opinion or implicit one, comments that clearly indicated they were in favor of starting one quarterback over the other.
Here’s who is in the Wilson camp.
Russell Wilson
Herm Edwards
Booger McFarland
Plaxico Burress
Ryan Clark
Bart Scott
Ryan Leaf
Bill Belichick
Bill Cowher
Akbar Gbajabiamila
Robert Griffin III
And the names in Fields’ camp.
Justin Fields
Mina Kimes
Danny Parkins
Mark Schlereth
Dan Orlovsky
Mike Florio
Gerald McCoy
Tim Hasselbeck
Leger Douzable
Kyle Long
Chris Simms
Mike Tannenbaum
Stephen A. Smith
The totals?
Start Justin Fields: 12
Start Russell Wilson: 10
Fields gains the edge, though only by a narrow gap. Analysts by some comments not listed just weren’t clear enough to include while others, like Orlovsky’s, have been a bit more mixed, though it seems he’s more optimistic in Fields than he is Wilson.
It’s worth noting that three former NFL head coaches are in favor of Wilson: Herm Edwards, Bill Cowher, and Bill Belichick. And probably all of the Wilson camp believes Fields should have some sort of role. Edwards has explicitly said as much.
Fields’ camp is populated by a handful of former players in Schlereth, Orlovsky, McCoy, Hasselbeck, Douzable, Long, and Simms. It also has a former general manager in Tannenbaum, whose suggestion of trading Wilson to the Minnesota Vikings seemed to be an endorsement of Fields.
Three of the former NFL quarterbacks listed here are favoring Fields with Leaf and Griffin showing confidence in Wilson. In this week’s Friday Five, we’ll be sure to ask the question of who you want to see start to be able to compare your views versus the talking heads.
What does all this mean? Not much! You probably already know that. None of the outside opinion noise, including my own opinion (which favors Wilson over Fields, if you’re wondering), matters. Only Mike Tomlin’s decision counts. Perks of being the head coach. And the decision seems almost certain to be Wilson, Tomlin likely announcing it next Tuesday during his first press conference of the regular season. How long Wilson starts remains to be seen but considering Mitch Trubisky got four games in 2022, Wilson figures to get that long of a look.
And probably longer than that.
