Now that there has been some time to digest the playoff defeat to the Baltimore Ravens in the wildcard round, it’s time to look forward to the offseason and the challenges that come with it. While some fans and analysts will be pouring over draft coverage or debating whether Mike Tomlin should stay as the head coach (which for the record he absolutely 1000% should be the Pittsburgh Steelers head coach) The most glaring decision that needs to be made in my opinion is at the quarterback position and how best to move forward with that for the upcoming season and beyond.
Russ needs to go
I will start by saying I have never been a fan of the decision to play Wilson over Fields. My opinion coming into the season was that we would be much better in the long run playing Fields, he obviously had potential and there was still a chance of unlocking it and him becoming a long term answer at the position. If not, then we would end up with a high pick where in theory we would be able to look at the draft to try and fix the position.
Whereas with Russ I thought we would be a safe bet for the playoffs without coming close to being a real contender as he wouldn’t be able to sustain drives against the elite teams when it mattered. This was the predictable outcome, moving forward we are just as unsure about the long term future of the position while having wasted a year of Watt, Heyward & Co. to be left in a similar position to last year.
The stats were there throughout the season to indicate that things weren’t going as well as they appeared if you were to look close enough. Win the seventh ? or is this ride beginning to grind to a halt? This was written after the Thursday night loss to Cleveland where things appeared hopeful for Russ and the offence at face value. Another season of Russell Wilson will inevitably bring about similar results even with better personnel around him.
So what now ?
While the guys are going through the QB’s in this year’s draft, imo it doesn’t look like there’s many great options that I'd be willing to use draft capital on. This leaves us looking at the veteran market which historically is never a good place to be in, in recent years though there has been a trend in the league of QB’s finding success after being dumped. Jared Goff, Baker Mayfield, Geno Smith and Sam Darnold are the examples that come to mind. Oftentimes it can be a crap shoot when pillaging for a veteran to turn your team around - however I think there is a common thread with these QB’s which make their rise less shocking when analysed.
They all had real quantitative success for their original teams:
Goff reached a superbowl and during that season beat the Chiefs in a shootout in which he threw for 400 yards and four touchdowns.
Baker broke the rookie touchdown pass record and generally played well for Cleveland; at one point leading the Chiefs late in the divisional round of the playoffs. His last season he was playing with one shoulder for most of the season, he tried to play through the pain to help his team and was rewarded with a trade for his substandard play and this is why the Browns are the Browns.
Sam Darnold showed flashes for the Jets despite being surrounded by a bottom three offensive line/pass catcher’s for the length of his tenure with the team. There were rumblings that Kyle Shanahan was considering starting him at QB when he spent his time there as a backup for a year.
Geno Smith is more of an outlier in this regard but again there were rumours as he matured that he could be a starter in the league. Ben McAdoo wanted to start him for the Giants and eventually benching Eli played a large part in the decision to fire McAdoo.
When comparing those situations to the Steeler's QB plans this year - I think an important difference with all of the QB's named above was that they were in their athletic prime and had seasoning in the league for their second stint - whereas Russ had shown lots of signs that he was cooked. Justin Fields certainly fits lots of the criteria mentioned above and definitely could have fit the bill if given the chance to start for the full season. The question remains of what to do moving forward at the position, there appears to be some criteria which we could use to try and identify veteran QB’s if the draft isn’t a viable option. I will go over the possibilities and who should be the starter next year for the Steelers in my next article.
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