After QB Justin Fields led the Pittsburgh Steelers to a 4-2 record to open the 2024 season, head coach Mike Tomlin turned to QB Russell Wilson after he recovered from a calf injury. Fields played limited snaps in the second half of the season, and he admitted in his opening Jets press conference that he wasn’t “comfortable” with the reduced role after starting.
“It was different for me and a space I wasn’t really comfortable. But Coach [Mike] Tomlin made a decision he thought was best for the team. I’m never going to go against that. I just tried to change my perspective and get better in practice,” Fields said via The Athletic’s Zack Rosenblatt.
While the Steelers made it a priority to retain Fields this offseason, he signed a two-year, $40 million deal with the Jets that includes $30 million guaranteed. He said that the benching didn’t really influence his decision to sign with New York, per Rosenblatt.
“Not really. You can’t take things personal…at the end of the day I was just excited about what the Jets had going on here. It didn’t have anything to do with Pittsburgh but the opportunity I had here to make an impact.”
Benching Fields was a decision Tomlin reportedly went “lone ranger” on, with some in the organization reportedly preferring to stick with Fields. But Wilson was named the starter ahead of the season, and even after Fields got off to a solid start, the Steelers went back to Wilson.
In Pittsburgh, Fields showed better decision-making than he had in his first stop with the Chicago Bears, but Tomlin ultimately felt Wilson gave the team a better chance to win. Initially, the decision paid off. Wilson went 6-1 in his first seven starts, but a five-game losing streak to end the season rife with offensive struggles ended up leading to Wilson’s exit in free agency.
It’s the first time Fields has talked about not being comfortable about the benching, but it makes sense. A quarterback who played well enough to have the Steelers in a good spot could not have been thrilled with being sat, especially when he was in the midst of the best football of his career.
In New York, he’s expected to be the starting quarterback, and he’ll have the opportunity to show that the Steelers may have made a mistake benching him and letting him walk this offseason. In New York, he’ll unite with Aaron Glenn, who coached against Justin Fields as the Detroit Lions’ defensive coordinator when Fields was in Chicago and Tanner Engstrand, New York’s offensive coordinator who is regarded as a rising coach in the league.
That opportunity played more of a part in him leaving than the benching in Pittsburgh, but it’s a decision that still likely didn’t sit well with Fields.
