Tim Benz: Refuting the idea that Mike Tomlin created an 'unnecessary distraction' with his QBs

I recently saw a headline that said Steelers coach Mike Tomlin has created an “unnecessary distraction” by not naming a starting quarterback to open the 2024 season as of yet.

Near as I can tell, the players on offense don’t seem distracted.

“It’s not my decision to make. We’ll find out in the next couple of days,” tight end Pat Freiermuth said Tuesday with a shrug of his shoulders. “(We are) comfortable, for sure, with either one. We can win with both.”

The quarterbacks involved — Russell Wilson and Justin Fields — don’t seem distracted either.

“I don’t ever question (Tomlin). He knows what he is doing. I’m just focused on what I can control and what I can do every day,” Wilson said after the preseason finale Saturday in Detroit. “It’s about us together. What we can do, how we go about it.”

Media members who cover the Steelers in Pittsburgh haven’t even made too much about it — and nothing drives ratings and clicks in a local market like a good old-fashioned quarterback controversy.

The reason that hasn’t happened, though, is pretty simple. There isn’t a controversy to discuss.

Wilson is going to be the QB on Sept. 8 in Atlanta. Barring his calf injury being so severe that he couldn’t perform or Fields looking like vintage Michael Vick in the preseason, Wilson was going to start.

“Me and (Wilson) don’t really pay attention to the outside stuff,” Fields said Tuesday. “Personally I don’t watch ESPN or SportsCenter or anything like that. We haven’t really talked about it, to be honest with you. We’ve just come in and worked.”

In fact, the only people who have been distracted by a Steelers quarterback controversy are the folks at ESPN and other national football media outlets. For instance, take a look at comments from former NFL quarterback Dan Orlavsky on ESPN.

“I would’ve started Justin Fields, but this was never a QB competition. We were bamboozled a little bit.”@danorlovsky7 on the QB battle in Pittsburgh pic.twitter.com/FtGVRES1c0

— Get Up (@GetUpESPN) August 26, 2024

“I would have started Justin Fields,” Orlavsky said on “Get Up!” Monday. “But this was never a quarterback competition. We were bamboozled a little bit. I have endless amounts of respect for Mike Tomlin. There’s no way that this was a quarterback competition.”

Yeah. No kidding, Dan. Welcome to the party. That’s what everybody in Pittsburgh has been telling the national media since Wilson and Fields were brought on board in March.

Bamboozled!? How were you bamboozled?! For five months you folks in Bristol have been doing the “bamboozling.” Commentators like yourself on ESPN and FS1 and the NFL Network and CBS Sports have been the “bamboozlers.”

Are those even words? If not, yinz get my meaning, n’at.

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The point is that the narrative-drivers in the national media have been advancing the story that there was really a two-horse race to determine who starts behind center in Pittsburgh. Unfortunately, it has been clear the whole time that Wilson was going to open the season in Atlanta as No. 1 on the depth chart if physically capable of doing so.

I get it. The Steelers have a huge national fan base. The QB situation in “Year 3 ABB” (after Big Ben) continues to be a constant point of intrigue. It’s great traction for national talk shows. It’s delicious conversation for websites.

The only problem is, in this case, no such drama existed and the national agenda to push a hot take exchange to the contrary never ceased.

Why was everyone working so doggedly to convince the public that this was a real competition? Just because Tomlin said it was?

Pfft! He says stuff like that all the time to keep players engaged and to make sure no one feels like a spot is just given to them before “earning” it.

To be honest, though, if he truly believed in open quarterback competitions, Mason Rudolph would have had a legitimate chance to win one in 2022 when Mitch Trubisky and Kenny Pickett were brought to town. Or he at least would’ve been given the chance to hold onto the No. 2 job.

Heck, maybe even to stick around this year and win this one.

But a simple check of the timeline should tell the story, shouldn’t it? On March 15, the Steelers acquired Russell Wilson. At 11 a.m. March 16, the Eagles announced they had agreed on a trade to get Kenny Pickett from the Steelers. Later that night, the Steelers confirmed that they had picked up Justin Fields from Chicago.

In other words, the Steelers first decided they wanted Wilson — when they could’ve had Fields just as easily.

So they signed him. The franchise only acquired Fields after Pickett said he didn’t want to stay, so they dealt him to Philly and got Fields to replace Pickett.

Not to challenge the guy they had just signed 24 hours earlier.

Not really anyway.

At least not to the degree that the national media has staged things. But, then again, this is largely the same national media contingent that positions any conversation about Tomlin and his performance completely differently than how it is discussed in Pittsburgh as well. So, should we really be surprised?

Locally, most fans and media in Pittsburgh know that Tomlin has never been “on the hot seat.” Yet they are at least willing to criticize him for his role in the franchise’s failure to win a playoff game the last seven seasons.

Nationally, every year the media gins up some phony conversation about Tomlin being “on the hot seat,” but goes out of its way to absolve him from any responsibility while answering its own made-up question.

I have never seen a team that has such a big national following covered so differently on a local level than it has been on a national level than the Pittsburgh Steelers the last three or four years.

This Wilson-Fields thing is the latest example … unless Tomlin comes out Wednesday afternoon and names Fields the starter.

Then I’ll just write on Thursday that I have been bamboozled.

Listen: Chris Adamski joins Tim Benz to look at the Steelers’ final roster, the cuts on Tuesday and some injury concerns.