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Brooke Pryor
PITTSBURGH — The Pittsburgh Steelers are back at the quarterback crossroads. Neither Russell Wilson nor Justin Fields is under contract for the 2025 season, leaving the Steelers’ quarterback cupboard bare. With a weak quarterback draft class and lackluster free agency class, the options to replenish it are limited.
Earlier this week, team owner and president Art Rooney II said he would prefer to sign Fields or Wilson, and he acknowledged it’s unlikely the team signs both.
“I think both of them see themselves as starters, and I don’t know that they want to share the same job again next year,” Rooney said. “So, I would say most likely we probably don’t wind up bringing them both back.”
He also said the team would look to the 2025 or 2026 drafts for a quarterback.
Poised to enter the offseason without a clear-cut starter for the third time in the four seasons since Ben Roethlisberger’s retirement, the Steelers are authoring the latest installment of a “Choose Your Own Quarterback Adventure” series that no organization wants to write.
Adventure 1: Re-sign Fields, draft a mid-round QB
Based on the Steelers’ history and reading between the lines of Mike Tomlin’s and Rooney’s end-of-season news conferences, this seems the most likely outcome.
Though Fields went 4-2 in his six-game stint as the Steelers’ starter, there appears to be plenty of untapped potential in the former first-round pick. Fields operated in a system designed largely for Wilson, one that didn’t fully unlock Fields’ best qualities as a runner. The Steelers played conservatively with Fields under center, often opting to limit turnover possibilities instead of throwing the ball more.
“He handled the situation, I think, as a young quarterback who wants to come in and learn and grow, and I think he did grow and I think he does have that mindset that he wants to get better,” Rooney said. “That makes you feel like you want to potentially work with him again in the future.”
Fields, 25, is a decade younger than Wilson. Tomlin and Rooney acknowledged age is a factor.
“I thought that the way that he managed his professional circumstance was really impressive,” Tomlin said. “I thought he brought an urgency to his day-to-day work regardless of his role. I thought he got continually better within our system of ball throughout the process. I thought the way he conducted himself makes that a legitimate thought or idea at this juncture.”
Because Fields doesn’t have Wilson’s experience or résumé, he’ll also likely cost less, fitting more in line with the Steelers’ track record of business decisions.
Prior to drafting Kenny Pickett, the team signed Mitchell Trubisky, also a former Chicago first-round pick, to a two-year, $14 million deal. With a thin quarterback draft class and free agent group, Fields’ price could be higher out of demand, but he could still command between $10 million to $15 million per year. By comparison, Sam Darnold played the 2024 season on a one-year, $10 million deal in Minnesota, while Gardner Minshew signed a two-year, $25 million contract with the Raiders in 2024.
Rooney said Monday he preferred to sign the quarterback to a multiyear deal.
By not overspending in cap space or draft capital at the position, the Steelers can address other areas of need, beginning with the offense. Before signing a quarterback, the Steelers are poised to enter the 2025 season with roughly $37 million in cap space.
With George Pickens, Calvin Austin III and Roman Wilson the only wide receivers under contract for the 2025 season, the Steelers have a glaring hole. The cap space saved by going with Fields instead of Wilson could allow them to compete in a free agent class that includes Tee Higgins, Keenan Allen, Amari Cooper and Chris Godwin.
Signing Fields, though, solves just half of the equation. The second piece involves selecting a quarterback with one of the team’s mid-round picks to be the 2025 backup. The Steelers have eight selections in the draft, beginning with the No. 21 overall pick. They have one pick each in the first five rounds, no sixth-round selection and three seventh-round picks. Rooney said Monday that he wanted to build a quarterback room of players with similar skill sets, making Alabama quarterback Jalen Milroe the most obvious fit to mirror Fields’ abilities. Milroe, though, could ascend to be a first-round pick, and the Steelers have too many other needs to justify using a first-round pick on a quarterback with Fields already under contract in this scenario.
If Milroe goes early, the next-best option is Ohio State quarterback Will Howard, provided he also doesn’t move up draft boards. Though he added just 226 rushing yards in his lone season with the Buckeyes, Howard is an experienced dual-threat talent and a more productive runner than his numbers suggest. He rushed for 57 yards on 16 carries in the national championship win against Notre Dame in addition to completing his first 13 pass attempts. There’s no consensus on Howard’s draft projection, but he checks a lot of boxes in a world where the Steelers stick with Fields.
Adventure 2: Re-sign Wilson, draft a mid-round quarterback
There’s more to it than swapping Fields for Wilson in this hypothetical. Because of his Super Bowl experience, Wilson would likely command a larger contract than Fields.
Though Wilson’s production drastically dropped off over his final five starts, he showed an ability to elevate the offense with a more robust passing game in his first six starts.
And though he bears responsibility for some of the most glaring errors, such as the fumble against the Baltimore Ravens, the mismanagement of the final drive against the Cincinnati Bengals and a handful of interceptions, Wilson’s shortcomings didn’t exist in a vacuum.
Not only did Wilson play without Pickens in two of those final five losses, but the Steelers lacked the wide receiver depth to replace Wilson’s favorite target. With Wilson’s cap hit likely eating up more space than Fields’, it would be more difficult for the team to pursue the top-tier free agent receivers. Instead, the Steelers could add a first-round wide receiver in the draft such as Ohio State’s Emeka Egbuka or they could target slightly more affordable free agents such as Darius Slayton or Stefon Diggs, who is coming off an ACL tear. They could also re-sign Williams with a clearer plan to integrate him into the offense.
The offensive line, which allowed 33 sacks in Wilson’s 11 starts, also never played at full strength in the 2024 season. First-round pick Troy Fautanu, who was competing with 2023 first-round pick Broderick Jones for the starting right tackle job, battled a training camp injury and played just one game before landing on season-ending injured reserve. With Fautanu out, Jones spent another season at right tackle despite Steelers general manager Omar Khan expressing a desire to move him to left tackle. Instead, Dan Moore Jr., a pending free agent, continued to start at left tackle and gave up a league-worst 16.5 sacks.
Wilson, therefore, could be more successful in a second year with the Steelers if the offensive line starts its 2023 and 2024 first-round picks as intended with Jones at left and Fautanu at right. The Steelers could further help Wilson by either drafting a guard or signing one in free agency to shore up the interior of the line with guard Isaac Seumalo entering the final year of his contract and Mason McCormick having an inconsistent rookie season.
Should the Steelers stick with Wilson, they would also need to marry him with a mid-to-late-round pick with a similar skill set to avoid repeating some of the issues that stemmed from having quarterbacks with different strengths in 2024.
With that in mind, the Steelers could look at Ole Miss product Jaxson Dart. Though Dart has a bigger frame than Wilson, he has similar arm talent and a knack for throwing the deep ball. He threw for 4,279 yards in 2024 and led all FBS quarterbacks with 10.8 yards per attempt and 11.53 air yards per attempt. He could be an option in the third or fourth round.
Adventure 3: Draft a first-round quarterback, re-sign Kyle Allen
In this scenario, perhaps the most unlikely, the Steelers swing big this year.
With a void at quarterback and a weak draft class at the position, the Steelers were in a similarly tough spot entering the 2022 season. That year, the Steelers not only signed Trubisky on the first day of free agency, but they also took the first quarterback off the board with Kenny Pickett at the No. 20 spot.
Two years later, neither player is on the roster.
Earlier this week, Rooney said there wasn’t much to be learned from the experience of drafting Pickett, whom the team traded to the Eagles after signing Wilson.
“Obviously, it’s disappointing that Kenny didn’t work out to be our long-term quarterback here, and I’m not sure there’s a lot to be learned from that,” Rooney said. “We just have to look at the next opportunity and make sure we do a good job evaluating it the next time around.”
The Steelers, though, could stand to learn a few things from the failed Pickett experiment. Even before they selected Pickett, they put their quarterbacks in an awkward position by signing Trubisky. The veteran was privately treated as the team’s QB1 from the day he signed, but in drafting a first-round quarterback and publicly keeping the door open for him to start, the Steelers made Trubisky a lame duck. Though he started the first four games after winning a pseudo-training camp competition, Trubisky played conservatively and the offense was stagnant as he aimed to limit mistakes rather than risk a big play. That resulted in Pickett being hastily thrust into the starting job at halftime of Week 4 without spending an offseason with the first-string unit.
Should the Steelers draft a first-rounder this year, they can position themselves for a better outcome by clearly — and publicly — defining the roles in the room. Allen, a seven-year veteran, is the backup and mentor to the rookie. The sooner the rookie can take over the starting job, especially behind a capable offensive line, the better.
Milroe could fall to the Steelers at No. 21, and though he has a high ceiling and Lamar Jackson-like traits, inconsistencies in his passing game make him a risky pick with other pressing needs to address.
To land a more NFL-ready player, the Steelers would have to make a far riskier move in giving up significant assets to jump quarterback-needy teams at the top of the draft. That would likely mean parting with a combination of T.J. Watt, Pickens or another impact player in addition to a package of picks that includes next year’s first-rounder. Teams with the first three picks — the Tennessee Titans, Cleveland Browns and New York Giants — all need quarterbacks. Giving up a king’s ransom to snag one of the first two picks this year could land the Steelers either Miami product Cam Ward or Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders.
With his calm demeanor and electric playmaking, Ward is projected to be the best quarterback in this year’s class. Not only did he record an FBS-best 39 touchdown throws, but he also had just seven interceptions and threw for more than 4,000 yards. He also posted a 93.3 fourth-quarter QBR and helped his team to a pair of comeback wins.
Like Ward, Sanders’ poise was also impressive with 11 go-ahead touchdown passes in his final season. Sanders was right behind Ward in on-field production, throwing for 4,134 yards and 37 touchdowns.
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