PITTSBURGH -- Throwing on the run, off one foot, Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Justin Fields side-armed a pass to tight end Darnell Washington as his team trailed by three scores in the second quarter of Sunday's loss to the Indianapolis Colts.
The big man turned his catch near the line of scrimmage into a 20-yard gain, stiff-arming a Colts defender into the turf and hurdling another. The play put the Steelers on the edge of the red zone for the first time all afternoon, though the drive ended with wide receiver George Pickens fumbling inside the 10-yard line.
"Darnell's play kind of gave us some juice a little bit when he stiff-armed the guy and jumped over him," Fields said. "I think that got us rolling a little bit for sure."
It was a sign of things to come -- and the beginnings of a Fields-heavy blueprint the Steelers could use to carry the momentum from the second half of the loss in Indianapolis into the beginning of Sunday night's showdown against the Dallas Cowboys (8:20 p.m. ET, NBC).
"Just can't warm up to it," Fields said. "Like Coach T always says, you can't wait for the other team to punch in your mouth before you really get going. So we want to come out the gate rolling, coming off the ball with energy, get the run game going early and play off of that, to be honest with you. It's just having that same mindset coming into the game and not really warming up to competition."
Outside of Washington's monster play, the Steelers' first-half was largely an offensive snooze-fest, continuing a frustrating trend.
But the offense woke up midway through the third quarter, roused by Fields' playmaking.
Though he had a third-quarter fumble and his second-half completion percentage was lower than the first -- 76% to 57% -- Fields still racked up 192 passing yards and one passing touchdown. He also had two rushing touchdowns and 7 carries for 41 yards, averaging 5.85 yards per carry, up from three carries for 14 yards in the first half.
"I thought in that second half, what was cool to watch as a coach and a playcaller, when somebody gets that kind of flow, he damn near took the game over," offensive coordinator Arthur Smith said. "When that happens and you feel it with a player, it didn't matter what I called, you felt him rolling. So that's what was such a bitter pill to swallow, how the game ended."
With Fields at the helm, the Steelers climbed out of a 17-point hole as the quarterback accounted for 233 yards of offense in the second half.
Down 10 with five minutes to go in the game, Fields connected with Pickens for a 37-yard gain on a pass that had just a 30.8% completion probability, per NFL Next Gen Stats. Earlier in the quarter, Fields found Pickens on another low-probability completion for a nine-yard gain to set up for Fields' second rushing touchdown a couple plays later as he faked the handoff, darted to his left and sprinted into the end zone nearly untouched.
The balance of calls also shifted as the Steelers tried to dig out of their first-half deficit, with Fields throwing it 21 times in the second half, up from 13 in the first. He also had half of the team's 14 second-half rush attempts.
"We were down multiple scores in the fourth quarter, man, but I didn't feel any blink," coach Mike Tomlin said. "In particular, I didn't feel any blink in Justin. We've talked about his steady demeanor in recent weeks. In terms of the things that I've grown to know and understand about 'em, I think it's really on display in moments like that."
Fields' production in the second half helped mitigate a ground game that struggled against a short-handed Colts defense. Harris, who figures to shoulder the bulk of the carries for a second week in a row with both Jaylen Warren (knee) and Cordarrelle Patterson (ankle) sidelined, had six first-half carries for five yards against the Colts. In the second half, he had seven carries for 14 yards. Still, Harris finished the game with a season-low 16 touches on 13 carries and three receptions.
Harris leads the team with 68 carries for 228 yards, but according to NFL Next Gen Stats, he's generated minus-52 rush yards over expected, the fourth-fewest in the NFL.
And though Fields' second-half takeover led to a near-comeback against the Colts, Smith doesn't think minimizing Harris in the run game and unleashing Fields with a wide-open playbook earlier in the game is the solution to erasing the team's slow starts.
"It's really not about opening it up," he said. "It's about executing and getting in the drive to get more plays ... We're not trying to not open the offense up early in the games, and we just got to do a better job overall.
"There's never been a discussion, 'Hey, don't let him do his job or don't let him go produce.'"
Smith also said Fields is gaining his trust more each week, but there's still a limit to how much freedom Fields has to change the play at the line of scrimmage.
"It just depends on the playcall, but if we have a run playcall then we're going to stick with that playcall," Fields said. "But one thing I'm not going to do is -- our offense doesn't roll like that. I put my full trust in Arthur to get us in the right play at the right time. So whatever he calls I'm going to roll with it."