Last week, we really saw the Pittsburgh Steelers use their Justin Fields package against the Cleveland Browns to varying degrees of success. Sometimes it worked well, like on his 30-yard scamper, and other times it did not, like when Fields got stuffed on fourth down.
Pittsburgh also made a controversial play using the Fields package, when they had him throw a go-ball to WR George Pickens on third down at the end of the fourth quarter. That play was questioned considering how well QB Russell Wilson was throwing the ball at the time, but head coach Mike Tomlin has no regrets.
“If they treat Justin like a wildcat quarterback we’re gonna throw the football,” said Tomlin on The Mike Tomlin Show streamed via the Steelers YouTube channel. “And Justin is a very capable quarterback. On the instance that you speak of, they [Cleveland] had 11 men within five yards of the line of scrimmage and they had a corner not named Denzel Ward matched up on George Pickens. And so we’re gonna throw the football under those circumstances and we care less about judgment or critique, because we play and play to win.”
While having a quarterback come off the bench to throw in a super weighty moment is bold, I get Tomlin’s point. Fields started six games for Pittsburgh and while he was not great, he was good. Fields went 4-2 and proved he could quarterback the team, but Tomlin moved to Wilson because he wanted to be great.
Fields is more than capable of throwing the ball, and even showcased his deep ball dropping beautiful deep passes a few times. When Pittsburgh has the look they want, they should absolutely take shots with Fields. However, I think it was the wrong time. Wilson was cooking and it was simply going to be difficult to track a deep pass in the snow. It was cold and the snow was coming down really hard at that point in the game where having Fields throw a go ball just wasn’t the right move. It was Fields’ second throw of the game (first was wiped out due to a penalty) and his previous throw wasn’t very good.
Tomlin is right that in situations where teams are treating Fields as a wildcat quarterback, they should let him throw it. Big plays will result from it, but it was a mistake to do it when the snow was coming down really hard and Fields’ earlier throw did not look good at all. The fact that it was on third and medium isn’t the problem. The problem was the weather, and the fact that it was the weightiest moment of the game. All that being said, Tomlin doesn’t live in his fears.
It will be interesting to see how much Fields is used tomorrow against the Cincinnati Bengals after a very mixed bag last week against Cleveland.
