Pittsburgh Steelers fans are waiting for any sort of news about the quarterback position this offseason. Will the Steelers bring back Russell Wilson or Justin Fields? Will it be another overhaul like last off-season? There are reports that the Steelers are prioritizing Justin Fields, but that hasn’t happened as of this writing.
And perhaps Fields is still feeling a little hard-done by how the Steelers handled him last year. He could be looking for more assurances from the Steelers and head coach Mike Tomlin. Or he could just really want to see if there’s a good market for him across the league.
Either way, you can count ESPN’s Mina Kimes among those who think Fields should return to Pittsburgh in 2025. She spoke about what she thinks Fields showed last season on Friday’s episode of NFL Live. She also shared what she wants to see in 2025.
“I don’t hate the idea of running it back with Fields, who I thought played fine for them last year,” said Kimes. “He did some things that I thought you can really build on. Took fewer sacks, had the lowest sack rate of his career. Was generally better at playing on time, within structure. But I will say, if they do bring him back, I’d actually like to see him unleashed a little bit more. I was sometimes frustrated watching him, feeling like he didn’t take enough chances downfield or wasn’t quite the explosive playmaker we saw in Chicago… You’d get more higher upside out of him in Pittsburgh this season.”
Sure, Fields only started six games (and appeared sparingly in four other games). Of course, he took fewer sacks. But as Kimes noted, he was sacked at a lower rate in 2024 (9.04 percent of dropbacks versus 10+ percent in his other three seasons). He also had a career-high completion percentage of 65.8, 4.4 percent higher than his previous high.
The Steelers can build on those in 2025. They also need to evolve and build the offense around Fields if they retain him. That means adding more talent at wide receiver (which they need to do regardless of who the quarterback is). Offensive coordinator Arthur Smith also needs to call a few more aggressive plays down the field, especially off play-action.
Maybe that means Tomlin needs to actually let Smith call an aggressive offense. We know that Tomlin is risk-averse. He wants his defense to be the focus to keep games low-scoring, but that approach isn’t working over the course of the season.
As Kimes said, Justin Fields showed some explosive playmaking ability during his time with the Bears. We didn’t see that in Pittsburgh last season. Fields threw the ball downfield less in 2024 than in any season during his Chicago tenure. That would certainly be a spot for Smith and the Steelers coaching staff to focus on in 2025. A better downfield passing attack could mean even more opportunities for Fields to run the ball. That could mean an even better version of Fields than we saw last season.
