Tag: Justin Fields

Justin Fields injury gives Steelers upper hand in Bears trade

Justin Fields’ absence cements a favorable draft pick outcome for the Steelers, turning a conditional trade into a clear win.

It is never a good feeling for fans when their favorite team’s players suffer an injury of any kind. This is especially true for the Pittsburgh Steelers’ backup QB Justin Fields, whose absence not only heavily weakens the depth behind QB Russell Wilson but also results in the loss of the ever-dynamic ‘Fields rushing packages.’

However, Fields missing his team’s Week 16 contest against the Baltimore Ravens complicates the Steelers-Bears trade in favor of the Black and Gold.

One condition of the trade that saw the Pittsburgh Steelers send a 2025 conditional sixth-round pick to the Chicago Bears is that Fields would need to play over 51 percent of snaps for the pick to become a fourth-round draft selection. As fans can guess, his Week 16 absence makes this completely impossible now.

Early in the season, with Fields starting six games straight to open the Pittsburgh Steelers’ 2024 campaign, it was expected the Bears would receive a fourth-round draft pick.

Wilson’s emergence not only changed the offense for the better, but it now seems to have assisted in what can only be described as a slam-dunk trade by Steelers GM Omar Khan.

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Steelers QB injury changes the dynamic of offense vs Ravens

The Steelers offense took another hit with Justin Fields out vs the Ravens.

The Pittsburgh Steelers released their game status report on Thursday ahead of Saturday’s game against the Baltimore Ravens. There was plenty of news coming out of that report and one move that went under the radar that could have a huge impact on the offense is backup quarterback Justin Fields being out with an abdominal injury.

Fields started the season as the Steelers starting quarterback and went 4-2. Fields gave way to Russell Wilson and became the team’s No. 2 quarterback and was gradually being worked into the lineup in some specialized packages that utilized Fields’ athleticism.

Without Fields, the Steelers will lose that extra dimension in the rushing offense. Pittsburgh is already going to be without wide receiver George Pickens, so losing Fields means the Steelers are now minus their two best big-play threats.

Not having Fields also means Kyle Allen becomes the backup. We aren’t saying Allen is a bad player but if something should happen to Wilson, we aren’t confident Allen can lead the offense the way Fields could.

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Steelers welcome 2 injured starters back to practice on Tuesday

Larry Ogunjobi, DeShon Elliott and George Pickens all missed Sunday’s game vs the Philadelphia Eagles.

Injuries played a significant factor in the Pittsburgh Steelers loss to the Philadelphia Eagles last Sunday. The Steelers were minus wide receiver George Pickens, defensive tackle Larry Ogunjobi and safety DeShon Elliott and all three were seriously missed.

But the good news is the Steelers got two of them back to practice on Tuesday. Sort of. Ogunjobi returned to practice on a limited basis and while Pickens was listed as DNP, he did go some individual drills with the team. Unfortunately, Elliott remained out.

The Steelers have an opportunity to clinch the AFC North with a win over the Baltimore Ravens this weekend so getting those three back will be significant. Pittsburgh is also hoping the injuries suffered by outside linebacker T.J. Watt and quarterback Justin Fields in last week’s game won’t keep them out even though both missed Tuesday’s practice as well.

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Steelers QB misses Tuesday practice with injury

Justin Fields suffered an abdominal injury in Sunday’s loss.

On Sunday, Pittsburgh Steelers backup quarterback only came in for a single play against the Philadelphia Eagles. That one play was a nice eight-yard rush made even better by a 15-yard penalty for a late hit.

Unfortunately, on that play, Fields suffered an abdominal injury that didn’t allow him to return to the game. That same abdominal injury kept him out of practice on Tuesday as the team begins preparations to take on the Baltimore Ravens on Saturday.

If Fields cannot go on Saturday, the situation is two-fold. First, the Steelers lose that element of Fields running the football in his speciality packages that have worked in very limited use since Russell Wilson took over as the starting quarterback.

In addition, if Fields cannot go, it would make Kyle Allen the backup and be just one play away from being the starter in the most important game of the season for the Steelers. If Pittsburgh can beat the Ravens this week, they will clinch the AFC North title.

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Sights and sounds from first half as Eagles hold a 17-13 lead over Steelers

Sights and sounds from first half as Eagles hold a 17-13 lead over Steelers

Philadelphia established its passing game and was dominant on defense, but the scoreboard tells a different story as the Eagles hold just a 17-13 lead over Pittsburgh after one half.

Vic Fangio’s defense held the Steelers to just 80 yards of offense on 30 plays in the first half, but two costly Eagles turnovers and two Chris Boswell field goals have Mike Tomlin’s team within four.

With the second half set to begin, we’re looking at sights and sounds from the first half.

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Bears and Seahawks fans still can’t get enough of Steelers QBs Russell Wilson and Justin Fields

Bears and Seahawks fans are still obsessed with QBs Russell Wilson and Justin Fields, even after their moves to the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Fans of the Bears and Seahawks are realizing the grass isn’t always greener, as they still can’t get enough of Steelers QBs Russell Wilson and Justin Fields.

The Bears opted to take their chances on rookie QBs this past offseason. The Seahawks, on the other hand, had traded Wilson way back in 2022 to the Broncos, opting to move forward with QB Geno Smith.  Both of these teams seemed keen on allowing their former signal caller to move on to greener pastures, or in this case, the Black and Gold.

Pro Football Reference, widely regarded as the gold standard in football statistics, highlighted which player pages were the most viewed in all 50 states in 2024. While much of the map looked like Patrick Mahomes and Lamar Jackson had taken over, several outlier states remained. Where things get interesting, however, is that Washington’s and Illinois’ most viewed players were none other than former QBs Wilson and Fields, respectively.

The Pittsburgh Steelers will likely only be able to keep one of their starting-caliber QBs, and with Steel City reportedly set on keeping Wilson for their long-term future, a Fields-Bears reunion still seems highly unlikely.

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Is the ‘Justin Fields package’ experiment over after Week 14 absence?

After Justin Fields’ absence in Week 14, questions arise about the future his rushing package and whether it was overused by Arthur Smith.

Oh, what a difference a week makes. It appears Pittsburgh Steelers OC Arthur Smith and HC Mike Tomlin were tired of explaining their strange decision-making regarding when to utilize QB Justin Fields’ mobility over QB Russell Wilson’s arm, as Fields played zero snaps in Week 14.

Inconsistency and poor execution are the only fitting descriptions for the ‘Fields rushing package.’ It seemed that the plays were either creating huge scoring opportunities or game-changing scenarios for the Black and Gold, or were costing Pittsburgh the contests entirely—there is seemingly no middle ground.

The Pittsburgh Steelers’ offense did look stagnant in terms of yardage in the Week 14 win over the Cleveland Browns, but the ball security and scoring prowess under Wilson’s leadership made up for it.

While it’s highly unlikely we’ve seen the last of the ‘Fields package,’ an argument can be made that Smith was incorporating it too heavily into every offensive gameplan since its debut in Week 11, instead of treating it as a last-resort gadget play, or red zone tool from week to week.

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Russell Wilson first Steelers QB since 2021 to achieve this feat

Russell Wilson became the first Steelers QB since Ben Roethlisberger’s retirement to throw for over 300 yards and 3 TDs in a single game.

Fans of the Pittsburgh Steelers who miss Ben Roethlisberger’s ability to sling the football—and what it meant to the Black and Gold passing attack—were ecstatic about the team’s Week 13 victory over the Cincinnati Bengals. Steelers QB Russell Wilson, who has looked consistently great since assuming the starting role over Justin Fields, threw for 414 yards and 3 TDs while averaging an incredible 10.9 yards per pass.

Why are the Black and Gold faithful so excited, and why is this the biggest takeaway from Week 13? One simple reason: the last Steelers QB to throw for over 300 yards and 3+ TDs was none other than Big Ben back in 2021.

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To keep the analysis short and to the point: Russ cooked the Bengals’ defense. While the Cincinnati-based AFC North divisional rivals have struggled to contain opposing offenses, no one can deny that Wilson is starting to look like the Pittsburgh Steelers’ QB of the future.

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Will extra preparation be enough to solve Steelers’ red zone woes?

Can Mike Tomlin and the Steelers fix their red zone struggles in time to improve one of the NFL’s worst TD efficiencies?

Fans of the Pittsburgh Steelers are understandably frustrated over the lack of scoring the past few weeks, but is it fixable?

The OC Arthur Smith led-Pittsburgh Steelers offense rank 13th in red zone attempts per game with 3.5 but have one of the worst red zone scoring percentages when accounting for TDs only: a bottom-three percentile team in the NFL at 44.74%. To highlight just how truly bad the Steelers are in the red zone, the Denver Broncos average fewer red zone scoring attempts per game but far surpass the Steelers’ red zone scoring percentage, ranking 11th at 57.50%.

Much of the blame has been placed on Russell Wilson, who has one of the worst red zone completion percentages in the NFL, completing just 34.6% of his passes. Justin Fields has the same number of red zone touchdowns, with four, one fewer interception than Wilson, and a solid 66.7% completion rate.

HC Mike Tomlin hinted that the Pittsburgh Steelers addressed some of these issues in a “bonus” practice of sorts last Tuesday, and fans hope it will be enough when the team takes on the Cincinnati Bengals on December 1st at 1:00 PM EST.

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Former Steelers QB wants to see Justin Fields line up at WR

Former Steelers QB Ben Roethlisberger shared an unconventional idea for the Steelers offense: using Justin Fields at wide receiver.

Strange circumstances from Week 12’s loss have sparked even stranger ideas for fixing the Pittsburgh Steelers offense. While fans, analysts, and coaches have zeroed in on the Steelers’ red zone inefficiency as an area needing improvement, former Steelers QB Ben Roethlisberger had an interesting suggestion of his own for the offense moving forward: Justin Fields at wide receiver.

During the most recent episode of Footbahlin with Ben Roethlisberger, Big Ben stated, “The nice thing is that when you use Justin a little bit at quarterback, it forces you as a defense, or opposing team, to spend a little bit of time at practice. I would like to see [them] line him up at receiver a couple times.”

Roethlisberger continued to argue that putting Fields in different positions forces defenses to spend additional time preparing to face the Steelers.

With this in mind, should the Pittsburgh Steelers implement Fields into different roles on offense, or was the failed package from Week 12 enough to discourage any further experimentation?

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