Now that the Pittsburgh Steelers’ 2023 season is getting underway after the team finished above .500 but failing to make the postseason last year, we turn our attention to the next chapter of Steelers football and everything that entails. One thing that it means is that some stock evaluations are going to start taking on more specific contexts as we get into the season, reflecting more immediate plusses and minus rather than trends over long periods. The nature of the evaluation, whether short-term or long-term, will be noted in the reasoning section below.
Player: P Brad Wing
Stock Value: Up
Reasoning: After nearly a decade, P Brad Wing will be starting a game for the Pittsburgh Steelers today. Recently signed to the practice squad with starter Pressley Harvin III nursing a hamstring injury, he got the call-up (elevation, technically) with the latter ruled out for the game.
Who had “Brad Wing Returns to the Steelers” on their Bingo card for this season? And were you drunk when you filled it out? Either way, kudos, because you somehow landed right in it. After years away not just from the NFL but from the game, he resurrected his career earlier this year in the spring leagues, actually playing or Steelers WR Hines Ward as his head coach.
That presumably helped foster some type of connection in bringing him back here, though that opportunity only surfaced because of the fact that starter Pressley Harvin III recently suffered a hamstring injury coming off of his strong performance last week.
With Harvin having been ruled out, failing to practice all week, Pittsburgh needed another leg on short notice, and Wing was available—to nobody’s surprise, of course, though perhaps if he performs well his number will find its way onto some pro scouting directors’ speed dials.
Wing earned the starting job as a former undrafted free agent in 2014, though he only punted for the team that season. The following year, he competed with Jordan Berry for the job. When the New York Giants offered a seventh-round pick for him and the competition was close, they decided to trade him and keep Berry, who lasted until 2021, when Harvin, a seventh-rounder, beat him out.
As it happened, Wing played three more seasons in the NFL, all with the Giants, but was released in March 2018. He did sign up to play for the Memphis Express in the failed Alliance of American Football in 2019, though he was released after he had a punt returned for a touchdown. He did not play through the pandemic, and went through some personal issues in his life, dealing with drugs, before resurfacing in the XFL for Ward’s San Antonio Brahmas. And now he’s in the black and gold for at least one more game.
