Center Zach Frazier says he doesn’t know what exactly went wrong on the Pittsburgh Steelers’ failed snap that doomed their chances to tie or win the game against the Indianapolis Colts. Quarterback Justin Fields is filling in the details. Speaking to reporters after the game, Fields took full blame and responsibility for the costly error.
“It was my fault,” Fields told reporters via the team website. “We were going the first leg kick. Then Zach was IDing stuff. I felt the DBs rotating and changing the back end pictures. So when he was IDing stuff, telling the o-line where to go, I was just trying to get that final picture before the snap came.
“At the end of the day it’s on the first leg kick. So after I kicked my leg up, I gotta be ready for the ball no matter when it’s gonna come or not. So yeah, it’s on me.”
On the road, teams work on silent counts. Snaps can be alerted by the guard tapping the center, a quarterback leg kick, or a combination of both. In this case, it seems to be the latter, LG Mason McCormick tapping Frazier in combination with Frazier’s leg kick that gave him permission to snap the ball after. Frazier did but Fields took his eyes off it, trying to get a last-second ID of the Colts’ coverage.
It led to disaster, the ball bouncing off and away from Fields. He recovered, but it resulted in a 12-yard loss, putting them in a 2nd and 22. On third down, Fields checked down to RB Najee Harris who wasn’t able to stop the clock, putting even more pressure on the ensuing fourth down that Fields threw incomplete. With that, the Colts knelt the ball down to salt the game away.
It’s hardly the first time these issues have popped up. They had the same issue occur in the preseason and once before in the regular season, snaps where Fields wasn’t expecting the ball. In those cases, the issues seemed to be on the 0-line, a young interior feeling the stress. Here, it was on Fields. Here’s the other two, first coming on the road against Detroit and again in Week 2 versus Denver.
Regardless of who is to blame, they’re fundamental issues that wouldn’t be acceptable in high school, much less in the NFL. They must be cleaned up and stopped, a line Mike Tomlin said in the preseason but one the team hasn’t been able to follow through on four weeks into the regular season.
