The Pittsburgh Steelers missed out on plan A when Justin Fields agreed to a two-year, $40 million contract with the New York Jets at the start of the legal tampering period. They remain in contention for plan B with Aaron Rodgers, but they are at risk of quickly working their way down the alphabet of plans if he doesn’t work out. That begs the question of what went wrong with their initial plan for Fields in the first place?
ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler appeared on The Dan Patrick Show this morning and passed along some new information pertaining to Fields.
“Last week or a week and a half ago, they put together an offer for Justin Fields that I was told was very competitive with what the Jets offered him, which was close to two years, $40 million with $30 million guaranteed,” Fowler said. “Something went off where he chose the Jets and he must’ve felt the love more from the Jets than he did the Steelers, who essentially benched him last year for Russell Wilson.
“I do believe they were all-in on Fields. I don’t know if they had Fields ahead of Rodgers, but they were willing to do Fields. Both sides, at one point, were open to it. It didn’t work.”
Up until this point, the only information about Fields’ decision that has been reported was Aditi Kinkhabwala saying that the Steelers weren’t offering guaranteed money past the first year of the contract. If that is true, it could just be that Fields felt he had a better chance at two solid seasons as the starter with the Jets and worried that the Steelers would move on after one.
I can understand Fields feeling some type of way about being benched in favor of Wilson last year while he was 4-2 as the starter. On the other hand, the Steelers turned him from a quarterback that only fetched a conditional sixth-round pick into a $40 million quarterback. If the deals were roughly even, you would think that the Steelers would be the choice. Arthur Smith has already proven that he can improve Fields’ play.
He chose the Jets in the end after reportedly being intrigued by their roster earlier in the offseason. The DK Metcalf trade happened on Sunday evening, so I am a bit surprised that didn’t swing his decision if the deals were roughly even. Perhaps he was more disappointed with the benching than he let on.
