A quarterback change appears to be coming in Pittsburgh and Justin Fields said on Thursday that he doesn’t think “I’ve played good enough” because he couldn’t close the door on Russell Wilson taking over the job.
Wilson was set to be the starter before a calf injury knocked him out just before the first game of the regular season and he’s gradually ramped up his workload while the Steelers were starting the season with a 4-2 record. Head coach Mike Tomlin opened the door to a change on Tuesday and Wilson has been taking first-team reps at practice, but offensive coordinator Arthur Smith didn’t share Fields’s view of how things have played out.
Smith said “sometimes some guys are too hard on themselves” and said he appreciated that about Fields because “the mental component to me is what separates the great ones from the other starters in this league and that’s what he’s pushing himself to be.” Smith didn’t confirm the change, but said Fields should focus on the positives of the first six weeks.
“You look at everything,” Smith said, via Brooke Pryor of ESPN.com. “I mean you try to look at from every vantage point, but that’s why you have to have conversations. No decision is ever easy. . . . When you become callous to it or numb, you probably should get out of this thing, but I think confidence should be high. He’s 4-2, he’s been pretty productive and so whatever Mike tells us to do, like I said, I’ve got it ready either way and just working and that’s my job.”
Assuming the Steelers are indeed making a change, Wilson’s first chance to run the offense will come against the Jets on Sunday night.
Though head coach Mike Tomlin has not made the announcement outright, it’s become clear that Russell Wilson is set to start Sunday night’s game between the Steelers and Jets.
To that end, Justin Fields — who started Pittsburgh’s first six games — addressed the media on Thursday and was asked if it would be frustrating to not start in Week 7 given how he’s played, helping lead the Steelers to a 4-2 start.
“I mean, I don’t think I’ve played good enough, if I’m being real with you,” Fields said, via Chris Adamski of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. “If I’m being real with myself, I think if I did play well enough, I don’t think there would be any sort [question] of who should be playing and who should not. At the end of the day, we got a few wins — of course I’m glad about that. But there are areas that I can get better at, and I’m just gonna continue to work on those and continue to get better.”
Fields added that he didn’t necessarily get what he wanted out of his six starts, because the team isn’t 6-0.
"[B]ut it was a great opportunity for me,” Fields said, via Brooke Pryor of ESPN. “Of course, I’m grateful for the opportunity. I did get those first six weeks, and we’ll just see what happens.”
If, as expected, Fields is the backup to Wilson on Sunday, he said he’s going to do his best to support the veteran QB.
“I’m just doing the same thing I was doing,” Fields said. “I just do my job at the end of the day and whether that’s playing, it’s helping the guys out on the sideline, tell him what I see, helping the rest out if he’s out there. So just small stuff like that.”
In his six starts, Fields completed 66.3 percent of his passes for 1,106 yards with five touchdowns and one interception. He also rushed for 231 yards and five TDs.
The wide receiver pool in the AFC East got a lot deeper this week.
Davante Adams was traded to the Jets and the Bills moved to acquire Amari Cooper in a pair of moves that will impact the Dolphins’ hopes of advancing to the playoffs as well. On Wednesday, Dolphins wideout Tyreek Hill noted that the two new arrivals will make things more difficult on opposing defenses while also saying that he’s comfortable with the Dolphins’ ability to deal with them as well as his own place in the divisional pecking order.
“They’re still not the best receiver in the league, because I am and I stand on that,” Hill said, via a transcript from the team. “I want my momma to send me this and say, ‘You’re talking your trash today,’ because I am. No, I’m definitely happy for Davante teaming back up with his old quarterback — I know that’s obviously where he wanted to be. And for Amari, I think him and Josh Allen those two guys will play very well together, because Amari is still one of those guys that can get open. It’s going to be a good test for our DBs when we play them, but got Jalen Ramsey on our team — we straight.”
The Dolphins have already played the Bills once and they’ll get their first look at Cooper in a Buffalo uniform in Week Nine. Their matchups with the Jets won’t come until Weeks 14 and 18, so Adams will have a lot of time to settle in before he’ll have to tangle with Ramsey.
Jets wide receiver Mike Williams didn’t practice on Wednesday, but he’s reportedly back with the team on Thursday.
Mike Garafolo of NFL Media reports that Williams is at the team’s facility.
Williams’s absence was due to personal reasons and it came after an eventful couple of days. Monday night’s loss to the Bills ended with Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers blaming a game-ending interception on Williams running the wrong route and Tuesday saw the team trade for Davante Adams in a move that made in unclear whether Williams will have any role with the team in the future.
That uncertainty only grew thanks to word that the Jets are shopping Williams to other clubs with the trade deadline coming at the end of the month.
Williams signed with the Jets this offseason as he came off of the torn ACL he suffered with the Chargers last season. He has 10 catches for 145 yards this season.
The NFL doesn’t allow players to change their jersey numbers during the season. Except when it does.
In response to an item we posted six years ago (after the first in-season Amari Cooper trade) regarding the league’s rule against in-season number changes, a reader raised the question of how Jets receiver Malachi Corley was able to give No. 17 to new Jets receiver Davante Adams. (Corley will now pay homage to Richard Todd.)
Here’s the rule, as confirmed by the NFL via Thursday morning email: “For competitive reasons, no player may change his uniform number once the regular season begins. Players on the practice squad that have not been on the Active List for a regular season game are permitted to change jersey numbers in order to make an approved number available for a new player on the Active List. Special exceptions to this rule may be considered by the NFL Football Operations department depending on the circumstances (e.g., player traded to another team).”
Asked how the Corley situation differs from the plan language of the rule, the league pointed out two realities: (1) the policy accounts for a player being traded to another team; and (2) Corley has been on the field for only three plays this season.
The trade exception didn’t allow Cowboys tight end Blake Jarwin to give Cooper No. 89 after a trade in 2018, however. Ditto for the late Demaryius Thomas; when he was traded to the Texans, tight end Jordan Akins already had No. 88.
In this case, the special circumstance that made the difference was that the player giving up the number hasn’t played very much this year.
The broader message? Rules, shmules. As long as the language permits “special exceptions,” we’ll make a special exception whenever we see fit.
