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Kaboly’s Ten Takes off the Steelers win over the L.A. Chargers Mark Kaboly / Steelers Correspondent For The @PatMcAfeeShow PITTSBURGH — Another week, another Steelers win and another box that Justin Fields checked. Whether he is the best person for the job is still debatable, but there is nothing that Fields has done in three games that would even suggest that he will be replaced by Russell Wilson anytime soon. Make no mistake about it, Fields was the reason why the Steelers improved to 3-0 Sunday with a convincing 20-10 win over the Los Angeles Chargers at Acrisure Stadium to take a full two-game lead in the AFC North. Sure, Fields did get a big assist from the $160 million defense that allowed negative-5 yards (not a misprint) in the second half and arguably the Chargers' best three players — Joey Bosa, Rashawn Slater and Justin Herbert — not being able to finish the game because of injuries. Still, if you are going to pinpoint the play of one player being the difference maker, it was Fields. Fields went 25 of 32 for 245 yards including a 55-yard scoring strike to Calvin Austin III with seven minutes left in a 13-10 game and added an earlier 5-yard touchdown run against the league’s best defense coming into the game. Fields continued to take care of the ball and executed the game plan laid out to him by Arthur Smith for the third straight week. But maybe more important than anything else that came out of the game was that Fields was able to check two more key boxes off of that proverbial QB1 checklist — accuracy and the willingness to throw over the middle of the field. The accuracy part has popped up out of nowhere for a guy who has never been very precise with his throws and may be the most impressive thing that we’ve seen out of him this season. A career 60% passer, Fields is now completing 73.3% of his passes albeit many are well within 10 yards of the line of scrimmage. Against the Chargers, a bullet of a pass over the middle to Pat Freiermuth (that was dropped) and the touchdown strike to Austin couldn’t have been more accurate. That alone should have the coaching staff thrilled to death of how far Fields has come in a couple of months. “I think I have always been kind of accurate,” Field said, “but I might be a little biased.” Fields is biased because he hasn’t been overly accurate all through the spring and summer but that’s changed now. If there is one thing you can point out that is the biggest difference between the old Fields that the Bears couldn’t wait to get out of Chicago and this Fields is the accuracy. “He’s been throwing the ball right on the money and that is in games and practice,” receiver Scotty Miller said. All that anybody seems to care about is who the Steelers’ QB1 is or will be? A lot of that is based on a polarizing personality of Wilson (outside of Pittsburgh), but it is a legit question moving forward that we 100% won’t get an answer to. Honestly, at this point, it’s not about who the starting quarterback will be for the Steelers now. That’s obvious. It’s Fields until he shows that he can’t be the starting quarterback. Crazier things have happened so I am not about to crown him with that title yet, but it is getting tougher not to. What is left for Arthur Smith and Mike Tomlin, for that matter, to do is let Fields cook … I mean, let him be DangerRuss … I mean, take the restraints off him and let him play quarterback and not manage a game. Game managers are a nice way of saying they don’t have the talent to be a traditional quarterback. Fields has shown that’s not him … in three games. Even though the final numbers and results were favorable, the first quarter against the Chargers was brutal. They were able to get away with it but it isn’t something they will consistently be able to get away with. What Fields has earned right now is to not put that “just don’t lose the game” label put on him by the team, which has been there front and center for the past three weeks. Fields has earned the right to open up the playbook but until the Steelers fully trust him, there’s going to be question marks. “He’s doing what we are asking him to do,” Tomlin said. At this point, it is unfair to continue to ask Fields not to win games but to make sure he doesn’t lose them. Sunday was a major step in the right direction with the entire field being open for him to use, but he still feels like a guy who is being hammered by the coaching staff to not make that big mistake. With this defense, Fields could be able to get away with a mistake or two. You will never know what you truly got in Fields until you fully trust him. “There’s not a lot that he can do better out there,” Miller said. “We have to follow his lead and keep going. He is going to give teams a little more to think about. We showed things that we haven’t shown before like (Calvin Austin) going for 60 on that play. People may have thought he couldn’t do that, but we see Justin Fields do that daily.” Kaboly's Ten Takes coming of the Steelers/Chargers game: 1) Leash is getting longer: It’s all about winning in the NFL and Fields continues to win. Now, what would it take for Tomlin to turn it back over to Wilson? One bad game? A couple of bad games? A loss? One game with multiple turnovers? I’m pretty sure that Tomlin isn’t giving that a single thought today as his team sits at 3-0 but believe it or not, there’s going to be a time when Fields is directly responsible for losing a game. At this point even though I feel that Wilson still gives the Steelers the best chance to beat teams like the Ravens, Bengals, Jets, Chiefs and Eagles, Fields deserves more than one hiccup before getting yanked. I believe Tomlin feels the same way. 2) Natural leader? The last thing I would’ve ever thought Fields would excel at would be leadership. I can’t explain why I thought that other than maybe he struggled so much in Chicago winning games that I assumed that it had something to do with it. I was wrong. I have always viewed Wilson as that guy from the day he signed as the type of leader the Steelers wanted and needed. Wilson might be that guy but Fields isn’t too far behind. Emotionless is the way I would describe Fields. That’s not a bad thing when talking about a quarterback. I haven’t seen one thing rattle him yet – not trailing Falcons early in his first start or down 7-0 against the Chargers, not throwing an interception on an ill-advised throw Sunday or not fumbling his first-ever snap under center against Atlanta. “Russ went in being the No. 1 but it wasn’t like Russ was the only one talking,” Austin said. “This was going back to workouts and Justin was telling us what he thinks and what he likes. From the first day, he’s been a leader.” 3) Oops: The Chargers were hell-bent on not allowing the Steelers’ running game to beat them. In reality, that’s just a nice way to say that they didn’t think that Fields could win by making the necessary plays. There were eight- and nine-men boxes for the better part of three quarters that allowed Fields to use the short passing game as an extension of the running game as he completed his first 11 passes. “If you can’t stop the run in these games, you can’t win games,” left tackle Dan Moore Jr. said. “Now that we have somewhat established ourselves as a run-first offense, defenses are going to be coming after us in the run game and we know that.” 4) Over the middle: In the first game, Fields attempted zero passes inside the numbers. That grew to six last week against the Broncos. Against the Chargers, Fields attempted 15 passes between the numbers. “They are going to have to respect that we have an offensive passing game now,” Moore said. “We put that on film and they are going to have to respect that.” 5) What a difference: After spending six years watching Randy Fichtner and Matt Canada coordinate the offense, maybe the expectations in Pittsburgh aren’t very high. I don’t think low expectations are the case with Arthur Smith. Smith has not only been able to manage Fields through three games but he noticeably schemes to find matchups that benefit the Steelers. Smith knew that there were going to be some easy completions on first and second downs to prevent the long plays and also have a series boil down to a third down. Now, this isn’t breaking news or anything of that sort but it at least illustrates that Smith at least knows what the other team wants to do and works off of that. Smith is not afraid to work with his personnel either. They were without MyCole Pruitt as one of their blocking tight ends so he improvised by using Mason McCormick in the Jumbo package. It’s elementary but stuff we haven’t seen here much recently. 6) What if? Being a contrarian by nature, I keep wondering what the outcome would’ve been if Slater, Herbert and Bosa were healthy and played the entire game? Sure, you can say the same about Alex Highsmith, Corey Trice and Troy Fautanu but the way the Herbert led the Chargers on their only touchdown drive and how the Steelers put pressure on both quarterbacks after Slater went out makes me wonder. 7) Limited play action? For some reason, the Steelers stayed away from the play-action, deep ball against the Chargers. Out of his 32 attempts, three went over 15 yards. I am sure that the Chargers playing a lot of zone led to that but if there is one thing that we haven’t seen consistently from Fields and Smith despite a running game that has gone over 100 yards in each of the first three games. That needs to change. 8) Return of Cam: You remember when you thought Cam Heyward was done? Too old, too slow and coming off injuries made him a ticking time bomb. If you questioned if his power is still there, all you had to do was what he did to tight end Hayden Hurst in the second half. Heyward hit him with so much force that the 6-4, 245-pound tight end got knocked back at least 5 yards. Maybe the stamina isn’t quite there yet but Heyward is still one of the top defensive linemen in the game. 9) Unsung hero: Punter Corliss Waitman averaged 52 yards on three punts and a 50.3 net. He had a long of 56 and dropped one inside the 20. Not bad for a punter who was unemployed two weeks ago. 10) Deja vu? The Steelers started the 2020 season 11-0 before imploding and barely making the playoffs. Only remnants of that roster remain today but after looking at the upcoming schedule – Indianapolis, Dallas, Las Vegas, N.Y. Jets, Washington, N.Y. Giants — 9-0 is not out of the realm of possibility for this team. The thing about that is if they are 9-0 and continue to win with defense and not allowing Fields to open it up, nothing will be learned about this team until after that.