For weeks, many in the national media debated over whom Mike Tomlin would start. Russell Wilson or Justin Fields. Despite those locally, and those who read this site, understanding the inevitable outcome. Fields would make plays this summer. His highlight tape would sizzle, his athleticism would excite, and the media would discuss who would start. But in the end, Wilson would be Tomlin’s guy to open the season.
Now, the media is speculating when Wilson will get benched. Sports Illustrated’s Conor Orr is counting down the days when the Steelers make the, in his mind, smart decision to start Justin Fields.
Wednesday, Orr published an article stating that the Steelers’ quarterback competition is “far from over.” He starts it off like this.
“Perhaps the only thing more worthless than the practice of creating a preseason depth chart is naming a Week 1 starter at quarterback.”
Uh, no? Naming a starting quarterback is infinitely more important than a league-mandated, coach-ignored summer depth chart full of players who won’t be on the roster come Week 1. That’s just objectively a false statement. I promise Las Vegas naming Gardner Minshew II or New England picking Jacoby Brissett over Drake Maye matters a hundred times more than their depth chart ahead of a preseason finale. It’s not really relevant to the substance of his argument but it’s a wild way to start an article.
Orr later writes that merely trading for Fields meant the team didn’t have much confidence in Wilson.
“If the Steelers were supremely confident in Wilson, they wouldn’t have added Fields or given the locker room a chance to see the juxtaposition between the two quarterbacks.”
Remember, Pittsburgh had no plans to roster Wilson and Fields. The normally tight-lipped Omar Khan even admitted as much. The plan was to have Wilson and Kenny Pickett serve as the team’s top two quarterbacks. But once Pickett asked to be traded and Pittsburgh obliged, the door opened to acquire Fields. The Steelers needed a No. 2 quarterback and Fields was the best and cheapest option, picked up for a late 2025 draft pick. A no-brainer trade to make where little is lost even if Fields was an abject disaster.
Orr continues.
“It’s impossible to ignore the fact that he was so undependable and out of sorts in Denver that, Nathaniel Hackett, opted to take the ball out of his hands in a critical moment at the end of his first game as a head coach and kick a long field goal…Sean Payton, after being so eager to thump his chest in regard to his superior quarterback coaching ability, is now eating the most dead money in NFL history to have Wilson playing for the Steelers.”
Essentially, two Broncos head coaches couldn’t make Russell Wilson work so what makes Pittsburgh any different? In fairness, it certainly says something about how much money the Broncos are paying Wilson to not play for them. Things didn’t go well between Russell Wilson and Sean Payton. But there was never any guarantee they would. Payton didn’t bring Wilson onboard, hired a year after Denver made the blockbuster deal for him.
Using Hackett to make the point isn’t a strong argument. Hackett was one of the worst coaches in NFL history and clearly in over his head, fired before even finishing one year with the team. There wasn’t even an Urban Meyer/off-field component to it. He just was a horribly ineffective head coach who made just about every bad decision a coach could.
And even if those points are all granted, the Bears dumped Fields, too. They could’ve traded the No. 1 pick for a King’s ransom and there were some, in Chicago and nationally, who supported the idea. Chicago decided to give him away when Fields clearly had a very light market where no team viewed him as a starter. There was a time where we wondered if Fields would fetch a first-round pick or at the least, a solid Day 2 haul. Instead, Pittsburgh got him for a conditional sixth round pick next year.
More from Orr.
“My feeling on this is strong enough that I wonder why Pittsburgh isn’t spending more time trying to uncover Fields’s ceiling than trying to put Wilson back together again in the first place.”
It’s not clear what Orr bases that off of. Earlier in the article, he admits the team has improved and worked on changing Fields’ footwork to make him a more effective quarterback and clean up the mechanical issues that have plagued him throughout his career. One reason why Pittsburgh slow-played Wilson during his camp calf injury was to give Fields additional reps and the chance to have a high volume of snaps to evaluate and progress. And Fields, to his credit, improved during camp.
Orr ends with this.
“I feel it’s only a matter of time before Fields gets his chance.”
And that could be true. I don’t want to put Russell Wilson on a pedestal. He’s 35, going on36, with less mobility than he thinks and if it doesn’t work in Pittsburgh this year, his career could be winding down. Wilson could be benched for Fields this year and that wouldn’t be a shock. I’ve maintained that Wilson would start Week 1 and where it goes from there, who knows.
But many in the media, like Orr and others, are already assuming Fields will start and probably sooner than later. Completely dismissing Wilson out of hand. That’s the problem. If Wilson is competent and Pittsburgh is competitive, two things likely to occur, Wilson will start the entire year. And once again, the media will have gotten it wrong.
