Kovacevic: Repeating yet again, it's Fields' team ... and that team's 3-0 taken at Acrisure Stadium (DK's Grind)

JUSTIN K. ALLER / GETTY

Justin Fields and the crowd celebrate his 5-yard touchdown run in the second quarter Sunday at Acrisure Stadium.

DK's Grind

Kovacevic: Repeating yet again, it's Fields' team ... and that team's 3-0

By Dejan Kovacevic

Sep 22, 2024 • 9:30 pm

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Calvin Austin's laugh-out-loud fast. 

As in, as soon as he's got both hands squeezing the ball and even a few blades of unmanned grass in his sight, it's wholly acceptable, I'd say, to let the laughter fly before he takes so much as a single stride.

Kinda like this:

Which, in turn, looks kinda like a playground plan: Flick it to the fast kid, watch him go.

Except that this specific Arthur Smith scheme's nowhere near that simple, as evidenced when I asked Austin after that 55-yard catch-and-fly sweetly framed the Steelers' 20-10 flattening of the Chargers on this home-opening Sunday at Acrisure Stadium.

"You know," Austin began, "with the type of zone defense they play, we knew that, if you kinda read the backer, if he attaches, you throw behind him. If he sinks, you dump it down. So, the backer, he attached to G. He was running right behind G."

He's referencing George Pickens.

And I'll try to explain further, at least from the Austin perspective: The Chargers' No. 3, Derwin James, is the "backer" that was referenced. If he bites on Pickens' nearby crossing route, then Justin Fields is to throw over James, provided there's an opening. Which there was, however thin, between two other defensive backs, Tarheeb Still and Elijah Molden. Whereas, if there's nothing there, Austin should try instead to slide underneath James.

Now, watch it again from the back angle:

See it now?

So, I remarked to Austin, that's a lot to ask of the receiver, yeah?

"Nope," he came right back. "It's all on the quarterback. Ball's in his hand. I'm gonna always bend my route in that direction, but it's up to Justin to decide if the backer drops out or if the drafter or the backer sits on GP, and he sat on GP. If we do, it's right behind his head."

All right, that was enough for me. I stopped asking.

But I did then walk across the room and pose this question, in the proper spirit, to Fields: Aren't you supposed to have trouble reading defenses?

____________________

We having fun yet, Pittsburgh?

Because I can promise that your all-new, really-real, stop-even-talking-about-the-other-guy starting quarterback's having himself a blast. And I mean beyond the above, beyond finishing 25 of 32 for 245 yards, beyond completing the first 10 of those passes, beyond spreading the ball all over, beyond rushing for the team's opening touchdown ...

... and even beyond throws like these three:

Sure, that last one fell incomplete, but as Pat Freiermuth himself acknowledged when I asked about it, "That's a drop. That's on me. Perfect throw."

There've been a few. In all, Fields has achieved the following:

• Record: 3-0
• Completions: 55
• Attempts: 75
• Yards: 518
• Percentage: 73.3
• Passing TDs: 2
• Rushing yards: 90
• Rushing TDs: 1
• Interceptions: 1
• Fumbles lost: 0
• Sacks: 6
• QB rating: 95.3

His passing yards rank 18th in the NFL, his completion percentage ranks fifth among the 25 quarterbacks with 400-plus passing yards, and his passer rating ranks 11th in that same category. (And all three of those figures, purely for entertainment purposes, are momentarily better than those of Patrick Mahomes.)

"It means a lot," Fields would say of winning three consecutive games for the first time in the NFL, this after three -- pardon the redundancy -- mostly miserable seasons in Chicago. "But at the end of the day, it's not just me winning games. It's the whole team. I'm just happy to be a part of this team, happy to be a part of this organization, and we definitely look forward to keeping it going next week versus Indy."

Happy to be proving a ton of people wrong so far?

"I'm not really worried about that," he'd say to that. "I'm more so into proving myself right. I know what kind of player I am. I haven't changed my whole life. At the end of the day, my teammates help me be great. 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. I'm definitely glad and just feeling good to be in this position, to be honest with you."

And what's been the biggest difference since his arrival?

"Just overall seeing the field. I feel like I'm just very calm out there, cool, calm and collected on the field. And really, just that sense of peace out there on the field and not really rushing things and turning in my brain. I'm staying calm in the pocket, just making plays when I can and just doing my job."

His job being, of course, starting quarterback for the Steelers.

That's what he is. I wrote it in Atlanta. I wrote it in Denver. I'll now write it here while simultaneously stomping on the caps-lock and bold buttons: THIS IS FIELDS' OFFENSE.

No, the head coach isn't about to declare that. As Mike Tomlin made clear last week, he won't do that until Russell Wilson's healthy. But we're now well into the stage where that'll now be a formality, a show of respect to an accomplished veteran who did nothing to merit losing that role beyond having a bum calf. He'll have them both available for the same practice, he'll lift the parentheses from after Wilson's surname, and he'll state with certainty that Fields is his QB1.

So pay little heed to Tomlin's abrupt postgame assessment of Fields, one that came across a lot like those backhanded compliments he'd compel himself to give once Mason Rudolph got going in late 2023: "He's doing a good job doing what we're asking him to do, playing and playing to win. And so, that's appreciated."

Immaterial. There's no suspense. No controversy. Also, no doubt.

Definitely not among those sharing his huddle.

"We can feel the confidence he brings," Freiermuth would say. "A lot of it's his play. A lot of it's just the way he's carrying himself."

"He continues to grow," Broderick Jones would say after a week of growth of his own. "I feel like, just because he's a young player, folks think he really doesn't know as much as he does. In Chicago, he always really just had to lean on himself and try and make those big plays. But here, I feel like he's got more time to just settle down and really break down or tear apart a defense."

Dan Moore told me he felt the game changed with the Steelers' opening drive of the second half. It brought only a field goal, but it covered a dozen plays, 50 yards and, per Moore, a bunch of huffs and puffs from the Los Angeles side.

"It was just like, 'This is it. It's our game.' " he'd recall. "We came out with those 12 plays, and I think we all felt we're gonna win this damned game. And then the defense fed off that. Team football. It felt like the dam breaking that Justin talked about to us in Denver."

Smith brought it up, too, this week.

"Yeah, that was definitely the dam breaking," Moore continued. "The big play came, we start popping big runs ... that felt good. Obviously, they've got their hands on their hips, they're tired. We're tired, too, but we're looking at them and we know that they're more tired than us, and that gives us a little bit more energy to keep pushing. That's ... man, that's the offensive line's dream."

Fields did answer my playful question, by the way, about being able to read NFL defenses.

"That's just a great play by Cal to catch and run like that," he'd reply, as I pretty much knew he would. "And the line did a great job of blocking it."

Picture pulling the plug on all that.

____________________

No need to take my word on the poise. This was Fields' full session at the podium:

Within that, Fields offered his own description of the Austin touchdown: "They were just in zone, quarters high. You're really just high-lowing that hook defender. The hook defender took GP underneath and Calvin was right behind him. Great play call."

I'll trust him on that.

And I'll trust everyone else that all of this, including a sizzling defense that allowed the Steelers to spectacularly dominate the second half -- 234 yards to minus-freaking-5! -- is only beginning to come together. I called the Atlanta/Denver performances a broader template, but this boosted it all a bit further.

It's not pristine. And it'll be no picnic overcoming in-game injuries to Jaylen Warren, who told me he was about to get an MRI on his knee, as well as Alex Highsmith and Corey Trice. But the synergy among all three phases is as genuine as the affection that was showering down from the 66,734 on hand through an electric fourth quarter.

"The Pittsburgh fans brought it," T.J. Watt would tell me. "That was crazy."

Elandon Roberts' take on everything:


"It's just the beginning stages, man," he'd say. "It's good to be playing well, getting better and winning at the beginning. Now, you just keep building."

The most important brick's cemented.

• Chris Halicke was here, and his Chalk Talk breaks down the middle-field usage.

• Greg Macafee was here, too, and he shines his Spotlight on Nick Herbig's nonstop splash.

• Much, much more from all three of us in our Steelers Feed.

• This storied franchise's 93rd home opener, as well as our planet's prettiest urban landscape, couldn't have been captured more elegantly than by the venerable Goodyear Blimp:

IG: GOODYEAR

• And from one storied franchise to another, it was a stroke of genius on the Steelers' part to invite these two civic treasures to start the party:

• The place loved it. A pure Pittsburgh moment I'm positive I won't forget.

• Thanks for reading our football coverage.

• And for watching:


• And for listening:


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