If the Pittsburgh Steelers’ red zone woes continue during this Sunday’s game at the 4-7 Cincinnati Bengals, could it prompt them to make a quarterback change?
For a piece published Tuesday morning, Steelers insider Brooke Pryor of ESPN mentioned how the 8-3 club is ranked 30th in red zone touchdown percentage for the ongoing season and how former starting quarterback Justin Fields “has a better red zone QBR (92.2) and completion percentage (57.1%)” than what Russell Wilson posted (8.9 QBR, 34.6% completion percentage) over his first five starts.
During Tuesday’s edition of the “Ultimate Cleveland Sports Show,” NFL reporter Aditi Kinkhabwala of CBS Sports suggested Pittsburgh head coach Mike Tomlin isn’t married to keeping Wilson his QB1 if the Steelers’ red-zone struggles persist.
“I think it’s totally within the realm of possibility that Justin Fields goes back to being the Steelers starter,” Kinkhabwala explained, Alex Kozora of Steelers Depot shared. “This Steelers offense has a lot of warts that have been kind of covered up the last few weeks because of Chris Boswell, their kicker, who is as money as they come, and because of this defense. But they have been absolutely horrific in the red zone. Russell Wilson once again is taking terrible, terrible, terrible sacks.”
Fields went 4-2 as Pittsburgh’s starter while Wilson recovered from a lingering calf injury, but the one-time Super Bowl champion then won his first four starts before the Steelers suffered an upset 24-19 loss at the Cleveland Browns (3-8) last Thursday night. Wilson alarmingly took 15 sacks over the past four games, four of which occurred against Cleveland.
“If your quarterback continues to take really, really bad sacks,” Kinkhabwala said, “you’ve got to assess again.”
Fields reportedly was never given “full command of the offense” during his time as Pittsburgh’s starter. Nevertheless, Kinkhabwala revealed that Steelers coaches believed the 25-year-old “was getting better every single week” before Tomlin went to Wilson.
“They were able to put more and more on his table every week,” Kinkhabwala added about Fields.
Tomlin’s handling of a delicate quarterback situation will result in the Steelers entering December atop the AFC North standings. That said, it sounds like he could make another change next week if Wilson fails to produce multiple touchdown drives at Cincinnati’s Paycor Stadium.
As of Tuesday afternoon, DraftKings Sportsbook listed the Steelers as three-point underdogs against the Bengals.
