During the mailbag segment of Jeff Hartman’s Let’s Ride podcast this week, a Ride Or Die Crew member submitted a question stating he wasn’t familiar with Justin Fields’ play in Chicago and asked how much experience he had at taking snaps under center. When I heard this, I immediately stopped warming up for my workout and fired off a quick reply. I might not know much, but I watched every snap Fields took for a previous article, and those numbers are still burned into my brain.

For a recap, last year Justin Fields had 370 pass attempts. A scant 27 of those were under center, and only 24 were play action. The results of his under center snaps were 8 completions, 8 incompletions, 2 sacks, 1 sack/fumble, 6 broken play rushes, and 2 designed runs.

That question prompted us to think about follow up topics on this subject. It’s no secret that play action is a staple of the Arthur Smith philosophy. Any QB playing for this offense needs to be proficient at being under center, turning their back to the defense, and quickly making a read to find an open receiver. In college and in Chicago, Fields was mainly in shotgun running the RPO offense.

Since we have one preseason game to dissect, let’s review what the tape showed us. In his debut performance as a Steeler, Fields had nine pass attempts, with an asterisk. The two fumbles in the game were under center and those could have been play action for all we know, so the actual number of pass attempts might have been eleven. Watching the all-22 film, Pat Freiermuth ran up the seam and then broke hard to the sideline looking like he was expecting the ball on the first fumble. It would stand to reason that if Fields felt the need to rush the exchange in order to make the fake and get turned around, that could have contributed to the bad exchange. Alas, we will never know for sure, so nine pass attempts it is.

Of those nine passes, three were under center. The first was a play action screen that resulted in a big gain. The second was a play action pass that resulted in a broken play scramble for a few yards after Fields could not find a receiver. The third was a play action pass for a big downfield gain along the sideline.

Considering Fields only had eight play action pass completions all of last year, having two completions in just three series shows promise and growth. I know, it’s an extremely small sample size and almost impossible to extrapolate hard data trends from it. But still, percentage wise, that’s a good start. Another good sign is that the completions Fields threw were all for good chunks of yardage.

The fumbles are not a good start if they were going to be play action passes and Fields was too preoccupied to execute the fundamentals. Both players took the blame for it, and it’s impossible to tell looking at the tape. Now that Nate Herbig has an injury, perhaps we will get a chance to see if that problem continues with Zach Frazier at center. The line seemed to wake up when Frazier came in the game, and I for one would like to see more of the rookie out there. He is the future, and it feels like the future should be now.

Justin Fields no doubt will need to keep working on play action pass execution and reading defenses. It’s not a style he has been asked to run very often in his career. One aspect of his game that surprised me watching his film last year is his lack of speed while in the pocket. There’s no doubt that Justin Fields is fast in the open field, but he isn’t quick in close quarter situations. It’s like a ¼ mile car race. The car with the most horsepower will make the fastest run, but the car with the most torque will win the hole shot off the line. Perhaps other coaching staffs saw that and abandoned play action as a result.

When Fields was pressured in the pocket last year, he rarely was able to escape. His big runs mostly came on designed plays. Russell Wilson looked much quicker in the pocket avoiding free rushers when I reviewed his game film. Getting the offensive line starters set and performing better at pass protection will be crucial for success. One thing for sure is that Justin was not set up for success in Chicago. In the upcoming preseason games, it will be interesting to see if the under center play action snaps increase, and how successful they are. When or if Fields is called upon this season, he will need to be proficient at executing it, starting with the QB/Center exchange.