Justin Fields' game vs. Colts was the best Steelers QB performance in years

Wins and losses are all that truly matter in the NFL, but there are always lessons to be learned from every game. For the Steelers, their loss against the Colts revealed plenty of negatives. The defense was pushed around for much of the game after a historically good start to the season. The offensive line struggled even before the injury to James Daniels. The secondary was getting diced up by the Colts receiving weapons.

All of those things matter moving forward, but the most important thing they learned was how their quarterback handled being down multiple scores. Justin Fields has had his most impressive start to a season in his young career, but he was rarely asked to carry the offense in the Steelers' first three games.

Last week against the Chargers had flashes of it, but it was still hard to know how much he could handle after so many bad moments in Chicago when he was asked to be the guy. His performance against the Colts wasn't perfect, but it was the best overall game by a Steelers QB in years.

Justin Fields nearly brought the Steelers back despite comedy of errors

Name a way you can mess up in a football game, and the Steelers probably did it in their loss against the Colts. Fumbles, drops, penalties, bad blocking, porous run defense, etc. Despite all of the mishaps they suffered, the game nearly ended with a Steelers win thanks to a heroic effort by Justin Fields.

His 367 total yards in this game are the most by a Steelers QB since 2018, and his three total touchdowns are the most since 2021. Those numbers may not rival some of the top performances across the league in recent years, but by the Steelers' standards, it may as well be record-breaking.

Fields made his fair share of errors like a fumble in the third quarter and likely played a part in the botched snap that basically ended the game, but the team would have never even had a chance to win without him. The question moving forward is whether head coach Mike Tomlin will allow Fields to shoulder more responsibility now that he has shown what he can do.

Playing conservatively and letting the defense do the heavy lifting worked initially, but Tomlin has to be willing to let Arthur Smith and Fields let loose when the opportunity is there. If this performance convinced him to do so, maybe the loss will be a blessing in disguise.