Perhaps the only thing more worthless than the practice of creating a preseason depth chart is naming a Week 1 starter at quarterback. If it was ever in doubt, enough so to continue a somewhat-open competition throughout the entirety of training camp, chances are it will be open again when the “starter” begins to falter.
Russell Wilson is not Baker Mayfield from a year ago, and believing so is ignoring the mountain of evidence and the hoard of Denver Broncos wide receivers doing jumping jacks while begging for the football over the past two seasons. Mayfield, who bested Kyle Trask last summer, led the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to the playoffs and signed a long-term contract extension this offseason, still has the tools at his disposal that made him a great quarterback in the first place. Wilson is in the middle of an arduous transition from expert play extender with a handful of good pitches in his arsenal to hopeful veteran field general without the ability to pick apart a defense through a Rolodex of experiences—the main advantage of starting a quarterback in his mid-to-late-30s, which can often outweigh a decline in mobility.
I don’t think it’s controversial to suggest that it’s only a matter of time before Justin Fields takes hold of the gig in Pittsburgh. Hell, Fields might play in Week 1, a possibility Mike Tomlin did not deny upon naming Wilson the starter. If the Steelers were supremely confident in Wilson, they wouldn’t have added Fields or given the locker room a chance to see the juxtaposition between the two quarterbacks, which the team will inevitably revisit if and when Wilson becomes a tiring presence on or off the field.
I don’t deny that Wilson has had some great years and has had some coaches and teammates who love him, but it’s impossible to ignore the fact that he was so undependable and out of sorts in Denver that, Nathaniel Hackett, opted to take the ball out of his hands in a critical moment at the end of his first game as a head coach and kick a long field goal. If you’re one of those people who believes Hackett was the reason behind Wilson’s failures, explain why Sean Payton, after being so eager to thump his chest in regard to his superior quarterback coaching ability, is now eating the most dead money in NFL history to have Wilson playing for the Steelers.
Wilson is an acquired taste, both personally and schematically, which is why he’s now trying to make it work with his third NFL franchise. Fields, who has had his moments of unconventional honesty in public settings and some learning curve in regard to being a franchise quarterback in a football-obsessed market, is younger and more athletic, and has a higher developmental ceiling that was flashed especially toward the end of last year. Now that the Steelers are meeting him halfway with his footwork and trying to build something more sustainable with his tool set, it’s only a matter of time before Fields’s long-term potential and dynamism outweigh Wilson’s combination of experience and remaining athleticism.
My feeling on this is strong enough that I wonder why Pittsburgh isn’t spending more time trying to uncover Fields’s ceiling than trying to put Wilson back together again in the first place. The only advantage of doing it this way is riding the kind of tailwind of energy that comes with passing the baton to the player everyone is undoubtedly more excited about. That, and allowing Wilson to deal with the rigors of a new offense and a developing line gelling.
Wilson was a successful quarterback when he had a cadre of coaches around him willing to build a game plan around exactly the kind of throws he was proficient in. The calls to “Let Russ cook” ignored the fact that when Wilson was able to assemble the meal, he looked like someone trying to use the ice cream machine while pressed for time on Chopped. Wilson doesn’t need to cook. He needs his meals preprepared, Hungry Man style. The sooner we understand that, the more able we are to place his best years into a proper context and realize that, minus an ability to evade defenders in the backfield like he used to, Wilson will struggle to rediscover the player who walked into one Pro Bowl after another from 2017 to ’21.
Playing for Tomlin and playing with the kinds of players Tomlin drafts and covets is like an instant personality test. It would take Wilson shedding much more than bad quarterbacking habits—I mean, remember this, and this?—for him to thrive long-term in a unique football fraternity such as Pittsburgh.
That’s why I feel it’s only a matter of time before Fields gets his chance.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Russell Wilson Will Start Week 1, But the Steelers’ QB Competition Is Far From Over.
