While the Pittsburgh Steelers are not likely to start Justin Fields on Sunday, make no mistake: he will remain an option. Even with Russell Wilson in the starting lineup, they will have the fourth-year veteran to fall back on. You can have all the discussions about confidence shaken that you’d like, but the bottom line is he is there.
And he quite likely will be out there during games, in a package designed for him. And guess what? The Steelers can use the Justin Fields package as frequently as suits their desire. If Russell Wilson were to struggle, I’m sure you can imagine what might happen. We could start to see those package plays turn into series.
Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin always preaches adaptability and tailoring game plans to each opponent. And we also know that he is a master orator when it comes to creating wiggle room. He has already laid the groundwork for dipping back and forth, too, in case you missed that. So the door isn’t suddenly closed on Justin Fields.
On Tuesday, reporters asked Tomlin if it would be fair to say that the named starter this week, either Wilson or Fields, would be presumed to be the starter for the remainder of the season, barring health. “No, that would not be fair to say”, he said.
Justin Fields may have sounded like he was hard on himself on Thursday, but he also wasn’t wrong. He knows that he needed to play better than he did if he wanted to prevent Tomlin and the Steelers from going back to Russell Wilson and giving him a try.
But don’t think they will just go the whole season with Wilson if he isn’t playing well. They have already seen that Fields can play winning football. If Wilson looks like he can’t, or if it’s too tough for him, then expect to see Fields in there. The Steelers know he brings things to the offense that Wilson does not.
And it might well be something that he does gradually if it comes to that. The Justin Fields package will come in handy. We don’t even know when they would actually employ it. But we know how they could employ it if they need to get him on the field and give him another look.
The Steelers might be starting Russell Wilson, but he can probably consider this an audition. He has hardly done anything in the Black and Gold that justifies his current status. He missed a lot of training camp and was limited in the preseason. I don’t need to remind you that hasn’t played in a regular-season game yet.
At the moment, the Steelers are less concerned about being right than they are about exploring the unknown quantity. They hope that Russell Wilson can unlock another level in this offense, but they don’t know that he will. What they do know is that they still have Justin Fields in their back pocket. He was never the plan for this year in the first place, but now he is their legitimate Plan B. Or maybe even 1B.
