There were several points in the Pittsburgh Steelers 19-17 loss to the Cincinnati Bengals where it felt like head coach Mike Tomlin might turn to quarterback Justin Fields to give the Steelers offense a spark. It never happened and despite the close score, the offense had very little to do with it.
After the game, Tomlin was asked if he thought about putting Fields in at any point to help give the offense a boost. Tomlin immediately shot that notion down.
“Our failures were collective,” Tomlin said.
Tomlin basically hinted that the group on the field was failing and they were going down with the ship together. Not really a good reason not to make a change but Tomlin’s hubris when it comes to his team seems to know no limits.
Fields went 4-2 as the Steelers starter in the beginning of the season but was benched in favor of Russell Wilson once he was healthy. Initially, the move looked genius but over the last month, Wilson has struggled leading to this four-game losing streak. Tomlin used Fields sparingly after benching him as a runner and it was always successful but Tomlin has gone away from it completely during this stretch.
