The Pittsburgh Steelers are entering the playoffs on a rare four-game losing streak. While the defense showed some signs of life against the Cincinnati Bengals in Week 18, the offense once again struggled against one of the weakest defenses in the league. Russell Wilson has been a big part of those struggles. Mike Tomlin said he’s “open” to utilizing Justin Fields this week in an effort to win in the playoffs, but Mark Schlereth takes it one step further.
“I may be crazy,” Schlereth said via FS1’s Breakfast Ball. “But I think if you’re gonna put it out there and you’re gonna beat the Baltimore Ravens, I think the best option is Justin Fields. The way they’re playing offensively, the struggles they’ve had as an offense where they’re at right now, not only running the ball but taking sacks, putting yourself behind the chains is a problem. And Russell Wilson has a history of taking sacks. In the last three games, he’s taken 12 sacks.”
Sacks can fall into three main categories. There are coverage sacks, where the quarterback is forced to hang onto the ball. The offensive line can just get beat, leading to an early sack. And then there is just the quarterback drifting out of the pocket or holding onto the ball unnecessarily to cause a sack of themself.
Wilson has had too many sacks recently that he has nobody to blame for other than himself. Entering the season, we knew that Wilson had among the slowest snap-to-throw times in the NFL. He likes to hold onto the ball and extend plays. That worked well earlier in his career when he was a little more athletic, but age continually makes that more difficult to pull off.
In 11 starts, Wilson was sacked 33 times. That extrapolates to 51 over a 17-game season. That would be tied for the second-most in Wilson’s career. That pace has accelerated in recent weeks, the 13th-year veteran taking 14 over the last four games.
The only issue in Schlereth’s logic is that Fields held onto the ball just as long last season and took just as many sacks. They both are similar in that regard.
Wilson’s time to throw (TTT) is 2.84 seconds on all snaps this season, but a very high 3.6 seconds when under pressure, according to Pro Football Focus. If you are looking for an improvement on that from Fields, you aren’t going to find it. His overall TTT this season is 3.08 seconds and 3.72 seconds under pressure.
What Fields does have going for him is more athleticism to actually evade sacks and pressure and do more with his increased amount of time holding the ball.
“I don’t think there is a shot with Russ,” Schlereth said. “I think there’s a shot with Justin Fields, simply because of the quarterback run game, RPO stuff where you’re just throwing to one dude.
The Steelers aren’t really in the business of change for the sake of change. Given that Fields has barely played since Week 6, it is safe to assume he will not end up starting, as Schlereth is calling for. I do think the Steelers could benefit from using him for five to seven snaps in certain scenarios. Short-yardage situations have been an issue for the Steelers at times. Fields seems like the obvious answer to help that issue, for example.
