The Steelers’ return to prominence, to the standard the franchise talks so much about but has consistently fallen short of recently starts with finding a franchise quarterback.
Or any quarterback — at least in the short term.
Russell Wilson and Justin Fields are both pending unrestricted free agents and while Art Rooney said Monday that he hopes the team re-signs one of them he also acknowledged that it’s not likely both return in 2025, per Steelers.com’s Bob Labriola.
The start of the new league year — and the free-agent signing period — is still almost two months away but there has already been rampant speculation about what the Steelers will do at quarterback. And Rooney acknowledged that fixing the Steelers after a five-game losing streak to end their 2024 season starts at quarterback.
“[It] is a key, key piece of the puzzle that needs to be addressed,” Rooney said, according to Labriola.
In regard to Wilson and Fields, Rooney said on the 93.7 The Fan PM Team show that is not practical for the Steelers to think that both will re-sign with the team.
“I wouldn’t close the door, but I’d say it’s probably unlikely,” he told Andrew Fillipponi and Chris Mueller. “I think both of them see themselves as starters and I don’t know that they wanna share the same job again next year. So, I would say most likely we probably don’t wind up bringing them both back.”
It seems a foregone that the Steelers will bring back one of Wilson or Fields. The 2025 NFL Draft is unlikely to yield an immediate or even long-term answer at the position that has been in flux since Ben Roethlisberger’s retirement following the 2021 season.
Free agency doesn’t offer many appealing options either, likely compelling the Steelers to home in on either Wilson or Fields.
Wilson’s recurring calf injury gave an opening to Fields, who started the first six games of the season and played relatively well. Fields went 4-2 as the starter and stayed away from the mistakes that had plagued the former first-round pick in Chicago. He also gave the offense some juice with his running ability and scored five rushing touchdowns.
Steelers coach Mike Tomlin turned to Wilson in Week 7 after he got healthy, and the nine-time Pro Bowler gave the passing game a lift. The Steelers got to 10-3 behind Wilson and an offense that could score points and a defense that played at a high level.
But Wilson and the offense wilted down the stretch and the Steelers did not score more than 17 points in any of their five losses to end the season. Wilson, 36, has said he wants to re-sign with the Steelers and play out the rest of his NFL career in Pittsburgh.
Fields, 25, is the younger, more dynamic option of the two. And he has indicated that he would like to re-sign with the Steelers. But there are questions whether Fields will ever be good enough as a passer to develop into the franchise QB the Steelers desperately need.
