Wilson led the offense on a five-play, 60-yard touchdown drive capped off by a Cordarrelle Patterson 31-yard run into the end zone.
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Justin Fields played the next three series - including a touchdown drive of his own, but the other three series totaled just 19 yards of offense.
It wasn't the loss that stood out on Saturday as much as the hidden message behind the distribution of snaps against the Lions. Tomlin clearly liked what he saw with Wilson and pulled him.
With Fields? Maybe not so much. Tomlin gave him three opportunities to move the ball with largely the same offense that he gave Wilson but with way worse results. Fields didn't necessarily play poorly, but he was no Russell Wilson.
Fields completed 3-of-4 passes for 40 yards and was sacked twice.
Officially, Tomlin says he'll name the starting quarterback for the Sept. 8 opener in Atlanta, "at the end of the work week this upcoming week." But the hidden message in the amount of playing time on Saturday is hard to ignore.
“We’ll make a decision at the end of our work week this upcoming week,” Tomlin told reporters. “We have three days of Steelers versus Steelers work and why not do it then? It kind of minimizes the Steelers versus Steelers work when we start making decisions prior to the completion of that. We’ve got ample time to prepare for Atlanta and make whatever decisions or announcements regarding division of labor or pecking orders and so forth, and so we’ll do it at the end of the work week.”
Wilson is the clear-cut No. 1 on opening day. But Tomlin most likely doesn't want to tip his hand to the Falcons this far in advance as the two teams begin preparations for each other. And that's a smart move.
“Again, we just needed results that were indicative of how we’ve worked,” Tomlin said regarding the decision to give Wilson only one drive. “And so they were able to put together a scoring and really just provide an opportunity to get Justin in there sooner.”
While we already know the answer, we'll have the official answer in a few days.
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