Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and another half-dozen saints: Justin Fields is a Pittsburgh Steeler

By Eshaan Joshi

I discovered this information at a Pittsburgh Riverhounds game in line to buy a baseball cap, because if you know anything about me, it’s that I love soccer and I love baseball caps. One of those two statements is a lie.

Anyway, I’m standing in the line, making mindless small talk with the other people in line with me, and I bring up the fact that, well, Russel Wilson is now a Pittsburgh Steeler. The washed up Broncos QB, who has a ring, a whole lotta cheesy one-liners, and at least one scandal under his belt, is now rockin’ the black and gold.

Oh god, what exactly is it that we’ve done?

See, the Russ Belt coming down to the ’Burgh is, on paper, excellent. We’re barely paying a dime for him, he’s on Veterans’ Minimum because currently the Broncos are on the hook for most of his salary, we can surround him with some talent at other positions — maybe a WR or two to make his throws a little easier — and the Steelers could, feasibly, possibly, be gahnta da super bawl.

Of course, this is the Pittsburgh “one game over .500” Steelers we’re talking about, so I fully expect to see Mr. “Let’s Ride” manage to throw away another Wild Card game against some random AFC team — and Lord knows we ain’t good enough to topple the Ravens and steal the AFC North crown.

All it really means is that Pittsburgh’s about to have a radically new kind of play, something incredibly alien for a team that’s used to just not doing anything radical. Art Rooney the Second is football’s equivalent to Neville Chamberlain, and he’s not going to do anything drastic.

Except now he has, and the Steelers ditched hometown “hero,” Pitt “legend” and “New” Jersey native Kenneth “Five Inch Grippers” Pickett, dropped him off at the Eagles center for quarterbacks who can’t play good and want to learn how to do other stuff good too, and picked up a running back with an arm and whatever Sean Payton left in Russel.

Boy, I’m excited for Steelers football.

It gets better, because honestly it seems like the entire league is completely retooling and changing how they play football this season. The Ravens picked up the King himself, Derrick “Truck” Henry, and plan on running the ball every single play until they reach the playoffs, at which point they’re going to score one entire touchdown and then forget about the ground game. A backfield like the ones the Ravens plan on running could be devastating for the AFC, which honestly is already looking like a scrapyard for teams to fight over. The Niners did. Well. Nothing, as did the Lions, but the Eagles are now going to be using the Brutus of our time, Saquon Barkley, as their running back. The Giants are Caesar, and we must beware the ideas of March (our good players realizing we’re a worthless team that will never win anything). I await the second coming of Eli Manning.

Beyond that, the Panthers flubbed hard, and the Bears are now, sans Fields, all in for Caleb Williams in this year’s draft. With the number of QBs currently slated to go in the first (Caleb Williams, Jayden Daniels, Drake Maye, JJ McCarthy, Bo Nix, Michael Penix), it seems like a lot of teams are going to do their absolute best to get a new signal caller and make some noise, especially teams that feel like they’re a QB away.