Ex-NFL GM Thinks Mike Tomlin Should Want Justin Fields as Starter
Down deep inside, former New York Jets and Miami Dolphins general manager Mike Tannenbaum thinks Mike Tomlin should be rooting for Justin Fields to supplant Russell Wilson as the Pittsburgh Steelers’ starting quarterback.
Fields is 10 years younger than Wilson and it would solidify that the Steelers have a franchise quarterback for at least the next decade. Wilson, 35, might only have a few years left.
“I think you have to declare who your quarterback is and move forward… If I’m Justin Fields, I am dying to win this job, because if I do, it just changes the trajectory of my career. Look, Russell Wilson deserves a ton of credit. He obviously loves football, but he’s much closer to the end, and if Mike Tomlin was telling the obvious truth, of course they’re going to root for Justin Fields because of his age. If they hit on him, they have their quarterback for the next decade,” Tannenbaum said on ESPN’s Get Up, via SteelersNation.com.
Former Steelers free safety and ESPN colleague of Tannenbaum, Ryan Clark, also thinks the Steelers should be hoping for Justin Fields to overtake Wilson as the starting quarterback because that means the Steelers would have their QB of the future.
“I want Justin Fields to win because that gives me an opportunity to have a quarterback of the future. Not a bridge guy. Not a guy on the back end of his career, but a young talented quarterback that needs the right pieces around him, who showed signs of being very good late last year,” Clark said on Get Up in March.
Clark doubled-downed on that sentiment in April.
“I just think that eventually Justin Fields is going to get his opportunity to play, get his opportunity to start,” Clark said on the All Things Covered podcast. “How long can Russell Wilson be the answer? They’re going to have to figure out who their quarterback of the future is, and Justin Fields being that answer solves a lot of problems. But you won’t know that he’s that answer if you shackle yourself to a ‘good enough’ Russell Wilson.”
At the opening day of OTAs, Fields made it clear that he doesn’t plan on riding the bench all year.
“I definitely don’t have the mindset of me just sitting all year. I’m coming in here every day giving it all I got and pushing him to be his best, and he’s pushing me to be my best every single day,” Fields said.
Read This Next
