To remedy their quarterback situation, the Pittsburgh Steelers brought in Justin Fields and Russell Wilson this offseason. Both quarterbacks are veterans, although Wilson is about a decade older than Fields. They also struggled in their previous homes, but head coach Mike Tomlin hoped they could bring the best out of one of them.
It seemed like that would be Wilson initially, as he earned the starting role to begin the season. Then, his calf kept him out of play for six weeks, and Fields made things a lot more complicated. Now, Tomlin has a difficult choice. He’s got Fields, who has led the team to a 4-2 record and a tie atop the AFC North, and Wilson, who was originally the starter and is now healthy.
Obviously, it’s a tough decision to make. As a result, many have criticized Tomlin’s inability to name a full-time starter yet. When Wilson was injured in recent weeks, Tomlin never outright claimed Fields had earned the starting role, although he did praise the young quarterback. Now, with Wilson healthy and even taking some first-team reps, Tomlin refuses to name the starter, despite Pittsburgh’s Week 7 affair against the New York Jets being just days away.
However, ESPN’s Michelle Smallmon is a fan of how Tomlin’s handling the ordeal, as she described on ‘Unsportsmanlike’ on Wednesday.
“He’s obviously finessing it wonderfully,” Smallmon said. “Because that’s what Mike Tomlin does.”
Tomlin has earned the type of reliability given to him by analysts like Smallmon. The Steelers have endured various ups and downs throughout his tenure as head coach. Still, Tomlin is always in touch with his players and has a good feel for the locker room. That helps him get through things like this better than most head coaches across the league.
More specifically to Fields and Wilson, Smallmon gave an interesting argument in favor of Fields.
“With Justin Fields in Chicago, a lot of the stuff around him was very contributing to what we saw, as far as the results are concerned,” Smallmon said. “The Chicago Bears were a mess in a lot of ways. Whereas I know it wasn’t great with Nathaniel Hackett, but a lot of what we saw in Denver with Russ was a lot of Russ’ own making.”
Fields has clearly been better this season than previously in his career. His completion percentage (66.3 percent), interception percentage (0.6 percent), and passer rating (93.9) are all career highs. Whether that’s due to his improvements or a better situation around him has been up for debate recently, though.
Here, Smallmon argues that Fields still might have a higher ceiling with the offense. She credits the Chicago Bears’ ineptitude for his downfalls there. As for Wilson, she claims he deserves blame for how poorly his time with the Denver Broncos went since he had more say in that environment than Fields did in Chicago.
