The Pittsburgh Steelers are going to be in a predicament come 2025. Whatever happens this season there are going to be some major decisions to be made regarding the quarterback room.
But before we get ahead of ourselves, there first needs to be a decision made this year. It seems like Russell Wilson will at least start the season at quarterback, but where’s the line with him? How bad does he have to be, or how good does Justin Fields have to be to make the change?
“If you’re the Pittsburgh Steelers and it’s close, how’s it not Justin?” former NFL QB Dan Orlovsky said Saturday on ESPN NFL Live today, “Because let’s fast forward to December and Russell Wilson’s your starting quarterback and he’s played well and you’re gonna be a playoff football team. Then you’re gonna have to decide at 36 years old, you shell out a ton of money to Russell Wilson. Or you sit there and go, ‘We’re gonna be good no matter who our quarterback is. We have Mike Tomlin, a great offensive line. Maybe we strike gold with Justin Fields.’”
There are a ton of ways this quarterback “battle” can play out in 2024, most of which put the Steelers in an uncomfortable spot in the 2025 offseason.
Maybe the most likely scenario is that both Wilson and Fields don’t show enough in 2024 for the team to want to sign either long-term. This could be for the best, but it would require Pittsburgh to go shopping for a QB in the draft, in a weak-looking QB class with a draft pick that probably won’t be super high.
Another option, and the one that Orlovsky alluded to, is that Wilson looks good, but not great, and leads the Steelers to a sneaky playoff appearance. What do you do? You’d want to run it back with the guy who carried you to the playoffs, but Wilson would probably want a fairly sizeable and multi-year financial commitment. It’s tough to give that to him unless he looks like his prime self, which doesn’t seem likely.
As Orlovsky noted, the ideal situation, albeit the least realistic, is that you find a gem in Fields. He would still be young, so you can feel confident giving him a big-time contract, and he would already be acclimated with the roster. He is the most likely QB on the roster to be a long-term franchise guy. But you’d have to hope he looks great because if he looks just okay, you’d be stuck in the Wilson situation described above, and Fields would want an even longer-term commitment due to his age.