The Pittsburgh Steelers allowed Justin Fields to serve as Russell Wilson's sous chef before allowing the veteran to cook. What resulted was another template Mike Tomlin season of late as Pittsburgh played just well enough to make the playoffs but nowhere close to good enough to seriously compete in the AFC. There is now a real question regarding how they will negotiate the quarterback position moving forward.
ESPN's Dan Orlovsky joined The Pat McAfee Show on Wednesday to discuss the situation, along the way laying out why the Steelers' method of juggling the two quarterbacks makes the path forward more difficult.
"The Fields thing is interesting to me and also frustrating to me at the same time because ... this is one of the reasons why so many of us—and me very much so—was so convicted about keeping Justin on the field," Orlovsky said. "Because now you still don't know. You still don't know anything. And for 2025 that position is a giant question mark."
"The Justin Fields situation in Pittsburgh is frustrating to me because now they still don't know what they have..
— Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) January 15, 2025
They're talking about bringing him back but they could've seen exactly who he was if they let him play all season" ~ @danorlovsky7 #PMSLive pic.twitter.com/duMcUX2DRj
Fields started six games in 2024. That's a decent sample size but nowhere near enough to feel truly confident about what he could be going forward. Fields went 4-2 in his starts and showed flashes of why his dual-threat abilities can be valuable, but that was augmented by some deficiencies.
"If you just had him play this year I still think you would have been a relatively similar team and at least you would have had the body of work of 'nope, this guy can't do it and we're going to not have him be a part of our future' or like 'we are convinced that this guy has a really bright future, he's going to be our at least starting point quarterback-wise,'" Orlovsky added.
Fields will be entering his fifth NFL season and it's not just the Steelers that don't know exactly what to make of him as a full-time starting quarterback. He's made 50 starts and yet still remains a bit of an unknown in a unique way. Orlovsky has some points about the reality of the situation but Pittsburgh had to balance competing against planning for the future at the position in a much different way than many other NFL teams this season so it's hard to be too harsh on them.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Dan Orlovsky: Steelers Put Themselves in a Frustrating Situation with Justin Fields.
