The hottest Pittsburgh Steelers topics to debate right now are what wide receiver they should consider acquiring and who should be their 2025 quarterback. They brought Russell Wilson and Justin Fields in on one-year contracts in 2024. Head Coach Mike Tomlin clearly favored Wilson, even playing him over Fields, who had a strong start taking the team to 4-2.
Tomlin was heralded as a genius when the team was 10-3, and Fields' strong start to the season was all but forgotten. That was until Wilson and the Steelers fell apart in the final four weeks of the regular season and lost the Wild Card game in the playoffs.
That made Fields' stock with the team and the league rise. Suddenly, most insiders predicted that Wilson would now be the odd man out and the team would instead choose the younger, more athletic quarterback. It doesn't seem like there will be many viable options in free agency, and the 2025 NFL Draft isn't considered a strong quarterback class.
Insiders Christopher Carter from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Mike DeFebo from The Athletic spoke about the quarterbacks on the Locked on Steelers Podcast. DeFabo said it is one thing if your team has Joe Burrow or Patrick Mahomes as their quarterback, you can spread the ball out. If you're a team like the Steelers, you won't be successful by launching an all-out air assault.
"If you're putting a quarterback, who you know is kind of mediocre-average, a little bit above average in a system like that, putting too much on his shoulders, you're not going to be successful," explained DeFabo. "I strongly believe that a big reason why Justin Fields was 4-2 in his first six games, a big reason why he has the best passer rating, best completion percentage of his career, a ton of other metrics, EPA per attempt, and so forth was because of the fact that he was in a system where they were not asking him to do too much."
DeFabo said the Steelers claim to want to win games in this ground-and-pound method of running the ball, but that isn't something they will be able to do with Wilson. Much has been made about Wilson's height and inability to see the field well. He was far more mobile when he was young, but now that he is older, he can't escape in the same way. The fact that Fields is far more mobile has worked in his and the team's favor.
If the Steelers want to be the kind of mobile team they claim to be, then they need to have a quarterback who is at least somewhat mobile. While Fields still has areas of improvement, he is expected to be a highly sought-after free agent this offseason. The Steelers must hope he wants to make a deal with them rather than shop himself around to other teams.
Steelers' Russell Wilson Deserves The Blame
Both Fields and Wilson have their critics. While Wilson took the Seattle Seahawks to two Super Bowls in his early days, it's been a long time. In the intervening years, he's been heavily criticized for holding the ball too long, resulting in sacks and countless throwaways. Unfortunately, Fields had displayed some of the same patterns, but DeFabo said he saw improvement in how Fields played under Arthur Smith.
DeFabo said the metrics showed that Wilson was to blame for many of the sacks, 18, and pressures he took in those final five weeks. Fields, who is nearly 10 years younger than Wilson, has the potential to grow and trend in the right direction, while the older quarterback seems set in his ways.
