The Pittsburgh Steelers' preseason opener against the Houston Texans could best be described as sloppy, with the team seeing multiple issues while the first-team offense was out on the field.
Those issues included the center-quarterback exchange between quarterback Justin Fields and center Nate Herbig, which led to two fumbles that the Steelers ended up recovering.
When asked about the situation after practice on Monday, head coach Mike Tomlin made it very clear that the exchange issues are definitely something he takes into account when evaluating players.
"I like their efforts, but I cannot remove that fundamental component of the eval," Tomlin said, per Aaron Becker of Yardbarker. "We’ve got to be 1,000 percent on (quarterback-center) exchanges. That’s just the standard for professional ball.”
After the game, both Herbig and Fields took responsibility, and Tomlin blamed the issue on both players.
“We were just shooting ourselves in the foot,” Fields said, per ESPN's Brooke Pryor. “Fumbled snap, I think all three phases, so we can definitely be better in that part. And I think the snapping part, we just got to be on the same page. I’ll put that on me to just be on the same page and know who’s in at center or know how to adjust and what I need to do.”
"I thought he did some nice things," Tomlin said of Fields. "But obviously he was a component of the (center-quarterback) exchange, and from my perspective that's dual responsibility on the center and the quarterback. It negated a lot of good things going on in those first couple of drives."
Fields was already trailing Russell Wilson for the starting job ahead of the regular season, so that certainly didn't help his cause. Meanwhile, Herbig is trying to lock down the starting center job over rookie Zach Frazier, who appears to be inching closer to grabbing the starting role after getting some first-team reps recently. However, Herbig figures to still be the favorite ahead of preseason Week 2.