My first in-season Tuesday notes for the 2024 NFL regular season—and with an ask that you also check out The Breer Report on YouTube each Tuesday to wrap up the week’s games. Let’s roll …
Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin said Tuesday that the team is preparing Justin Fields to start Sunday in Denver, and there are plenty of folks in the building excited to see how Fields builds on last week’s game against Atlanta because progress was there.
A couple of things affected how the coaches approached the game. First, there was a need to protect an offensive line group that was breaking in two new starters and a third, right tackle Broderick Jones, who’s still, experience-wise, a rookie. Accordingly, the Steelers ran the ball 41 times. Second, there was a game-plan element, and directive, to stay away from throwing into the middle of the field where Falcons star safety Jessie Bates III roams.
Fields was a little skittish on his first drive, but settled in from there, playing an efficient game, which, with Pittsburgh’s defense, was all the Steelers really needed. He also played good situational football at the end of the half and at the end of the game, helping put away an 18–10 road win in his hometown.
Bottom line: Pittsburgh’s comfortable with Fields starting. So whenever Russell Wilson does return from the calf injury, he’ll have to play well.
• Super significant stat from Week 1: Josh Allen targeted 10 (!!!) different receivers, and connected for completions with nine of them in the Buffalo Bills’ 34–28 comeback win over a very feisty Arizona Cardinals group. Even better, he threw for a very efficient 232 yards, two touchdowns and 137.7 passer rating without a pick (he did lose a fumble).
Why does that matter? Two reasons, both related to the departed Stefon Diggs. First, Allen gets to work the offense to the open guy, not having to worry about getting any one player touches. Second, it shows that Buffalo, even sans a superstar, has enough at the skill positions to bring that vision to life.
Allen did a lot this offseason, taking the skill guys to Nashville, and working one-on-one with younger guys, to try and expedite his chemistry. At least for one week, it looked like that, and a lot of other things, were working for Buffalo.
• I thought it was pretty cool that, in the moment, New England Patriots coach Jerod Mayo thought to give EVP of football operation/de facto GM Eliot Wolf a gameball after the team’s 16–10 upset of the Bengals in Cincinnati. Mayo had just gotten a gameball from owner Robert Kraft, and made the call to flip one to Wolf, as he would the players.
I asked Mayo about it afterward.
“It’s important that we get good players here and Eliot and his guys have done a good job working at it,” Mayo said. “We are always looking for way to get the team better. I don’t feel like I can do my job without having a guy like Eliot.”
A small gesture but a cool one in a place where everything flowed down from one guy who held all the power for a quarter century. And reflective of what Mayo told me when I asked him whose team he’s building back in July—“It’s our team.”
• Aaron Rodgers can, and will, play better than he did Monday night—all of the high-level throws were there in the New York Jets’ 32–19 loss to the San Francisco 49ers.
But there’s an underlying number from the game that not enough people paid attention to in the aftermath: 38. That’s the number of snaps Rodgers played before being pulled at the end of the game, with Tyrod Taylor coming in to handle mop-up duty. Brock Purdy, by comparison, played 71. The reality is Rodgers only got eight real possessions, and that’s the result of great game management and critical play by the Niners.
Clearly, San Francisco wanted to slow the game down to keep Rodgers and the reworked Jets’ offense from finding a rhythm, and did it by controlling the ball for more than 38 minutes. It took moving the chains on third down to accomplish that (they were good, not great in that area). It took being effective running the ball (they rushed for 180 yards on 38 carries). It took discipline and patience, and the experienced Niners have all of that.
Basically, the premise is that Rodgers can’t beat you without the ball. The Niners kept it away from him for nearly two-thirds of the game. Which is a job well done. Big picture: Rodgers, again, will be fine, because few teams are equipped to do what the Niners did.
• Micah Parsons said on his podcast, confidently, “I’m going to be a Cowboy.”
It’ll be expensive to make sure of that for the team, and especially now that the door seems to be closed on getting a deal done a year early. When I asked COO Stephen Jones on Sunday night about the spot Dallas is in contractually with Parsons and coach Mike McCarthy, he responded, “Our mind is on one thing now. We put everything to bed.”
So if Parsons has the sort of year it looks like he’s going to, based on the camp he had, and what he looked like in his first game playing for new defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer, it’s fair to wonder if, just like Dak Prescott became the league’s first $60 million man, Parsons might be spoiling to become football’s first $40 million nonquarterback.
• The New York Giants preached patience to others on Daniel Jones during training camp—given that he’s still not even a year out from ACL surgery. That said, veteran players don’t really care about your three-year plan at quarterback. And so if some believe Drew Lock is the better option, that can create a problem for coaches‚ which I know Brian Daboll is keenly aware of.
That the fully guaranteed money in Jones’s contract is gone after this year provides a fascinating backdrop to the whole thing.
• I love this story that Derek Carr gave me Sunday afternoon—the New Orleans Saints quarterback was explaining the way he spread the ball around against the Carolina Panthers, and he brought up a story from his time with Jon Gruden. He even gave me the Gruden voice for effect.
“Everyone in the building knows Chris Olave is our No. 1 guy,” Carr said. “We want to get him the ball as many times as we can. But, at the same time, the coverage dictates that, and you have to move on and get the ball into other peoples’ hands. Coach Gruden would also say to me, You don’t care who you get the ball to. He would also tell me that I would throw it to the right guy. Hopefully, I do it to the right guy every time …
“Thing is, I am going to run the play and get the ball to the spot or the zone where the ball needs to be. I am not going to discriminate on anything—I’m going to make sure the ball is going to get to where it needs to be.”
Carr targeted nine different guys on 23 attempts, connecting with eight on his 19 completions.
• The Tyreek Hill situation has sparked interesting debate, to be sure. One thing that’s worth hanging your hat on with it? The fact that Calais Campbell, who’s one of the NFL’s best people (and a former Walter Payton Man of the Year winner), was on the scene. Even if you have understandable questions on believing every word from Hill, I’d take just about all of what Campbell has to say to the bank.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Steelers Excited About Justin Fields Starting Again in Week 2.
