For most of this season, fans were curious when the Pittsburgh Steelers were going to deploy their Justin Fields package on offense. Over the past two weeks, they’ve gotten a nice, long look at it, and results have varied. Against the Baltimore Ravens, Fields was a nice change of pace to close out the game. However, against the Cleveland Browns Thursday night, things were not as smooth. Former NFL offensive lineman Mark Schlereth believes that ended up hurting the Steelers more than anything in their 24-19 loss to the Browns.
“Part of that Mike Tomlin thing is how gimmicky that offense became,” Schlereth said Friday on FS1’s Breakfast Ball. “Russell [Wilson] takes that sack on the very first drive that knocks them out of field goal range. You can’t have that.
“You’ve gotta just dump the ball off. Don’t worry about not throwing an incompletion. Throw the incompletion, move on, and kick a field goal. But the whole thing with Fields, and then Russ, it just didn’t make sense.”
The Steelers did employ Fields more this week than in Week 11. He ended up getting seven snaps on offense, and things felt clunky from the start. The first time Fields took the field, the offense ended up getting called for a false start. When he actually got to run a play, he got stuffed on a crucial fourth down.
Things did get better for Fields down the stretch. In the fourth quarter, he busted off a 30-yard run that led to the Steelers’ first touchdown. His burst clearly caught the Browns off guard, and that seemed like a flash of what this package could be.
Still, things weren’t perfect. After the Steelers picked off Jameis Winston and had a chance to close out the game, Fields was brought on third and four. This time, he was given the chance to throw the ball. He took a deep shot to George Pickens, but the throw was off target. It felt more like a spot for Wilson.
It might be a little too early to call the Steelers’ offense “gimmicky” though. Schlereth does make a good point that some things didn’t make sense, but that could also be due to poor execution. The Steelers still haven’t used the Fields package very much, so it isn’t surprising that they need to iron out some wrinkles.
Thankfully, the Steelers have a mini bye week coming up. That should give them the opportunity to work out some of the kinks when using Fields on offense. They were too blatant with the way they used him, and by the time they made a change, it was too late. There’s still a lot of potential with utilizing Fields’ skill set. It’s just up to the Steelers to unlock it.
