Justin Fields is the Pittsburgh Steelers’ best option at quarterback for the 2025 season and beyond. Fields is slated to enter free agency on March 12, so the Steelers must act quickly if they are going to secure his services for the foreseeable future.
Fields, who will celebrate his 26th birthday a week before the official start of free agency, had a successful first season with the Steelers, who acquired him from the Chicago Bears via a trade last offseason. He went 4-2 as Pittsburgh’s starting quarterback while completing a career-best 65.8% of his passes. Fields scored 10 total touchdowns (five passing, five rushing) and threw just one interception.
A 2021 first-round pick, Fields played the 2024 season under the final year of his rookie contract. The Bears didn’t pick up his fifth-year option prior to Pittsburgh trading for him, so Fields isn’t eligible to play under that in 2025. It’s going to cost in the ballpark of $40 million to franchise tag quarterbacks in 2025, so that’s probably not an option for either parties.
Regarding Fields’ future with the Steelers, we know that there is mutual interest between both. Steelers president Art Rooney II recently said that the team’s “priority” is to re-sign either Fields or Russell Wilson, who went 6-6 as Pittsburgh’s starter in 2024. Pittsburgh head coach Mike Tomlin said shortly after the 2024 season ended that Fields had showed him that he could be the team’s starting quarterback in 2025.
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“I thought that the way that he managed his professional circumstance was really impressive,” Tomlin said of Fields. “I thought he brought an urgency in his day-to-day work regardless of his role. I thought he got continually better within our system of ball throughout the process. I thought the way he conducted himself makes that a legitimate thought or idea at this juncture.”
Fields has also expressed a desire to remain with the Steelers.
“I want to be here,” Fields said near the end of the season, via the Tribune-Review. “I’m kind of tired of learning a new offense every year. This will be my third in four years. Of course, I’d love to be back, but that’s all up to God at the end of the day. I’ll be where God wants me to be.”
Fields wants to be back, and the Steelers want him back. So, a deal prior to the start of free agency should be easy enough, right? Whenever both parties want the same thing, business usually goes much smoother. Money, however, is always a big factor in business decisions, and that’s obviously the case in this situation.
A recent report by Sports Illustrated stated that the Steelers want him as their starting quarterback for 2025 as long as Fields’ contract request is “reasonable.”
What’s reasonable? Fields’ market value is currently slated at $6.43 million for one year, according to Spotrac. That’s a woefully low projection and one that surely won’t fly with Fields, who is likely going to want to be paid closer to what a franchise quarterback makes if that’s the role he’s going to assume in Pittsburgh.
Fields deserves a contract like that, but he does need to be reasonable as he has yet to put together an exceptionally strong season from start to finish. To compare, fellow former first-round pick Sam Darnold played the 2024 season under a one-year, $10 million contract. That likely won’t work for Fields, though, given that he has had more success at this point in his career than Darnold did prior to last year, when he helped lead the Vikings to a surprising 14-3 season.
Seahawks quarterback Geno Smith is currently the 19th highest-paid quarterback at $25 million annually. The next highest-paid quarterback, Gardner Minshew, makes $12.5 million annually. Darnold is behind Minshew and is the 21st and last quarterback who currently makes over $10 million annually.
The Steelers need to consider that Fields has the option to test the open market, so they need to present an offer that will be good enough to compel him to sign before March 12. If they don’t, they will likely have to get into a bidding war with other teams that are in a similar spot from a quarterback standpoint. Rest assured that Fields will have a solid market if he decides to explore free agency for the first time (the Jets, Titans and Raiders are just a few of the teams that may look into signing Fields if he is available).
It certainly helps the Steelers that Fields wants to continue his career in Pittsburgh. That will probably help a little at the negotiating table, but not much. The Steelers can’t overpay, but they need to show some sort of monetary investment in Fields if they are going to keep him.
If all goes according to plan, this will be a bridge contract for Fields, who is surely looking to play well enough over the next one or two years to warrant a lucrative, multiyear deal that is in line with the league’s top-tier quarterbacks. With that in mind, Fields won’t want to lock himself into a long-term deal now, but he undoubtedly is looking for some level of financial commitment in his upcoming contract.
When looking at everything, a two-year, $40 million contract with incentives that could reach up to $50 million seems reasonable for both sides. Fields would be paid like a top-20 quarterback, would have performance-based incentives that could increase his earnings by 20% and it would still give him a chance to sign another contract while he is still in his prime.
The two sides could always renegotiate after the 2025 season if Fields has a big season, similar to what transpired with Baker Mayfield and the Buccaneers last offseason (Mayfield, another fellow former first-round pick, penned a three-year, $100 million extension following his first season as Tampa Bay’s starter).
If the Steelers offer something like that, one would think that there’s a good chance that Fields opts to re-sign before free agency, thus giving Pittsburgh its coveted starting quarterback for the next few years, at least.
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