2024-09-23 18:20:04
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Brooke Pryor, ESPN Staff Writer
PITTSBURGH — Steelers quarterback Justin Fields, riding a three-game winning streak for the first time in his career, said he’s “grown a lot” this season and is “definitely feeling more confident.”
The 2021 first-round draft pick rushed for a touchdown and threw for another in Sunday’s 20-10 win against the Los Angeles Chargers.
“It means a lot, but at the end of the day it’s not just me winning games, it’s the whole team,” said Fields, who started his third game with Pittsburgh as Russell Wilson continues to be sidelined with a lingering calf injury. “… We definitely look forward to keeping it going next week versus Indy.”
The Steelers are 3-0 for the first time since the 2020 season, which was Ben Roethlisberger’s penultimate year when the team started 11-0 before dropping four of its final five regular-season games.
Fields chose to deflect when asked if this current run of success is proving wrong those detractors from his days with the Chicago Bears, where he was 10-28 in 38 starts over a three-year tenure.
“I’m not really worried about that,” Fields said. “I’m more so into proving myself right. I know what kind of player I am. I haven’t changed my whole life, so at the end of the day, my teammates help me be great. So shout out to them — shout out to our defense, shout out to everybody else on the offense for pushing me each and every day at practice. It’s just a credit to them.
“So I’m definitely glad and just feeling good to be in this position, to be honest with you.”
Fields was right in that it was a complete team win. Not only did the offense have its first multi-touchdown game of the season, but the defense recorded five sacks and held the Chargers to negative net yards in the second half.
They also did it without two starting offensive linemen and with starting outside linebacker Alex Highsmith sidelined with a groin injury by halftime.
“We knew it was going to be an entertaining game.” coach Mike Tomlin said. “They’re playing great defense. We were playing great defense. We had to challenge our defense to outperform theirs. I thought they did.”
The Steelers shut down the Chargers’ ground game and held J.K. Dobbins, the league’s leading rusher, to 44 yards on 15 attempts. On the other side of the ball, the Steelers got their own run game going in the second half against the NFL’s stingiest defense as Najee Harris rushed for 67 yards on 14 carries in the final two quarters.
The Steelers also got big contributions from their smallest wide receivers as Fields targeted Scotty Miller and speedster Calvin Austin III, exploiting the middle of the field for big gains, including Austin’s 55-yard touchdown.
Outgained 173-112 in the first half, the Steelers flipped the script in the second half, gaining 234 yards while holding the Chargers to minus-5 yards of offense.
“We knew what kind of game we were going to be in, and we knew that we didn’t play well enough in the first half,” Fields said. “We had a couple of miscues in the first half, and we knew we were better than that, so Coach T challenged us at halftime to play better and be better and we came out second half and did just that.”
Fields did have an interception in the third quarter — his first turnover of the season — and he was sacked twice, but he finished 25-of-32 for 245 yards — his most passing yards yet this season.
After Sunday’s win, he acknowledged feeling more comfortable with each passing week.
“Just overall seeing the field. I feel like I’m just very calm out there,” Fields said. “Cool, calm and collected on the field, and really just that sense of peace out there on the field and not really rushing things internally in my brain.”
Fields’ teammates have noticed that growth as well.
“He continues to grow,” right tackle Broderick Jones said. “I feel like just because he’s a young player, folks think he really doesn’t know as much as he does. Chicago, he always really just had to lean on himself and just try and make those big plays. But here, I feel like he has more time to just settle down and just really break down or tear apart a defense.
“Once he starts throwing it over their head, and we start running it, then it is game over at that point.”
