Justin Fields is preparing to make his fifth start for the Steelers, his first night game against the Dallas Cowboys, who fed the Baltimore Ravens their first win of the season in Week 3, largely thanks to QB Lamar Jackson.
In that game, Jackson went 12-for-15 passing for 182 yards, but he also rushed for 87 and a touchdown. Yes, Derrick Henry had 152 rushing yards and two scores, but Jackson is the obvious focal point of that Ravens team. And Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy agreed that they need to treat Justin Fields with similar respect versus the Steelers.
“Yeah, definitely”, he said about preparing for Fields in a way similar to Jackson, via the Cowboys’ website. “You’ve got to be really on top of your keys and your vision, because when he pulls it down…”. He trailed off, considering the damage Fields can do with his legs—but not just by running.
“Actually, I’ve been impressed with the drop-back part of it. [Fields] gets through his progressions pretty cleanly”, McCarthy said of the Steelers’ quarterback. “He’s getting to his checkdowns. You see the ball going to his checkdowns a lot. That tells you the level of understand and comfort that he has in a new offense”.
So far this season, Justin Fields has 145 yards and three touchdowns on 38 attempts. He is only averaging 3.8 yards per rush thus far, which is atypical of him. However, that just means that there is still more meat on the bone in that department.
“He not only just pulls it down and runs, he pulls it down to throw first, too”, McCarthy said of Fields. “It’s the two-part scramble that you always look at from the quarterback position. He’s produced some good numbers on the scrambling throws just as much as on the scrambling run”.
Lamar Jackson has increasingly evolved into such a passer as well, though he will always use his natural assets. Proportionally, Fields is still taking off almost as often as he has historically. But he is doing it with greater intelligence, even if the success rate isn’t there yet.
The Steelers enter Sunday night’s game with a battered running back room. Najee Harris is still plowing along, but both Jaylen Warren and Cordarrelle Patterson seem to be trending toward not playing. The team brought up Aaron Shampklin from the practice squad, and they may elevate Jonathan Ward, as well. But I would expect them to be more proactive in using Fields on the ground to compensate for that.
Especially considering they saw how Lamar Jackson was able to use his legs to get the better of the Cowboys’ defense, there is no reason they would think Justin Fields can’t do the same. They are two of the best athletes to ever play the quarterback position at anything approaching a competent level.
