Wilson started his preseason debut as a Steeler, but faced a tough reception in his five drives.

The offense managed just one first down in its first four possessions and was constantly thrown into third-and-long situations that it couldn’t convert. His best drive was his last, when he converted a third down with an 11-yard pass to Van Jefferson and then nearly passed to George Pickens on a long throw when the wide receiver didn’t have both feet in the field. Unfortunately, that drive ended with a missed field goal and Wilson’s night was over after he completed 8 of 10 passes for 47 yards and suffered three costly sacks.

“When you’re not winning possessions in the early stages of the game, all of those things really start to stall,” Tomlin said. “Part of that, but other than that, I don’t think we protected the quarterback well enough. We need to be better at pass protection than we have been — not just in possessions, but in general.”

“I’ve been really open and honest with the group about this, it can’t be a problem for us. We have to be better in this area than we were tonight.”

The inability to get anything done while the starters were in action was so glaring that, according to Tomlin, it was actually harder to accurately evaluate the quarterback’s performance in the first game.

“It’s an incomplete study because you just don’t get a chance to see them or us play or develop rhythm and personality unless you win possession,” he said. “And we didn’t. It was three and out for the first three or so series of the game, and you don’t get a chance to develop rhythm or play the way you want to as an individual player or as a team.”

Fields came into the game in the second quarter hoping to put last week’s fumbles behind him and jumpstart the offense. Although he did a better job of holding onto the ball against the Bills, he also couldn’t find his rhythm. His best play was a 20-yard leg run on the way to a field goal. That was the only point of the afternoon, however, as all three of the Steelers’ second-half drives ended in failed fourth-down conversions, two of them in the red zone. He finished the game completing 11 of 17 passes for 92 yards.

The struggles of both players and the offense as a whole didn’t give Tomlin much additional clarity in deciding whose play should earn them the starting spot for Week 1. Additionally, there is cause for concern about the offense as a whole considering the starters have only scored three points in two games and none of them scored.

Pittsburgh has one more preseason game against Detroit, and time is running out before Tomlin can name a starter and the offense finds its regular-season form, regardless of who ends up playing quarterback.