The Pittsburgh Steelers preseason is over, but head coach Mike Tomlin has yet to name a starting quarterback.
The longtime Steelers head coach is engaged in a high-profile quarterback battle between offseason signing Russell Wilson and trade acquisition Justin Fields, both of whom rank highly in the polls at the quarterback position and neither has been named the starter as of this writing.
The Steelers went 0-3 in the preseason and lost to the Detroit Lions in their preseason finale on Saturday.
“We’ll make a decision at the end of the work week,” Tomlin said. From ESPN“There are three Steelers-Steelers games this week, so why not do it then?”
“If we start making decisions before that’s done, it will minimize the Steelers-vs-Steelers work. We have plenty of time to prepare for Atlanta and make decisions and announcements regarding sharing, pecking order and so on, so we’ll do that over the weekend.”
In this game, Wilson led a touchdown drive and was quickly replaced by Fields.
“I didn’t get the job done, but I was able to accomplish a lot of the things I wanted to accomplish.” Tomlin said after the loss.“We wanted to get our starting lineup back in shape and rhythm that reflected some of the things we’ve seen in practice, and we did that. And as soon as we got comfortable with some of those things, we gave them plenty of opportunities and tried to find one of the last seats on the bus, but obviously we didn’t play well enough to secure the win.”
Wilson finished the preseason with 73 passing yards, completing 10 of 12 passes.
The younger Fields got more playing time in relief, completing 19 of 27 passes for 199 yards and also rushing 13 times for 48 yards.
“They both moved the ball,” Tomlin said, “they won possession downs and we got them all in the end zone, which is something we haven’t done enough of so far in the preseason.”
Wilson signed a one-year contract with Pittsburgh in March after being released by the Denver Broncos, where he spent the final two seasons after being traded by the Seattle Seahawks.
The Broncos are still paying Wilson, but he $53 million in dead cap money Towards the 2024 season.
Less than a week after acquiring Wilson, the Steelers acquired Justin Fields from the Chicago Bears in exchange for a conditional sixth-round draft pick.
The Steelers open the 2024 regular season on Sept. 8 against the Falcons in Atlanta.
