It remains to be seen whether Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin will decide to start Russell Wilson at quarterback on Sunday night against the New York Jets. Whatever the choice, Justin Fields, who has started the team’s first six games, said on Thursday that his play has not cemented his status in the role.
“I don’t think I played good enough, if I’m being real with you,” Fields said. “If I’m being real with myself, I think if I did play well enough, I don’t think there would be any sort of who should be playing, who should not.
“At the end of the day, I got a few wins. Of course, I’m glad about that, but there’s areas that I could be better at and I’m just going to continue to work on those and continue to get better.”
The Steelers are 4-2 and tied with the Baltimore Ravens atop the AFC North. After a hot start to the season, Fields has cooled off. He’s thrown for under 150 yards in each of their past two games and also has recorded a 57% completion percentage over that stretch.
Fields became the Steelers’ starter when a calf injury hampered Wilson during training camp and into the regular season. After being deemed healthy, Tomlin said this week that Wilson, who took first-team reps on Wednesday, had a chance to take over the role.
Despite what the stats has said for Fields over six weeks, Tomlin isn’t using numbers to make his decision.
“Stats are often for losers,” Tomlin said. “It’s comfort food when you’re taking an L. I just try to focus my energies on positioning this group to win and doing what’s appropriate to try to put the best collective together this week and win this game.”
As Fields and Wilson await to hear Tomlin’s decision Fields said he was preparing for the Jets game like he would be starting again. But even if the choice is Wilson, Fields’ running ability — 231 yards and five rushing touchdowns — could see him involved in packages with Tomlin calling Fields’ legs “an X factor” this week.