The Pittsburgh Steelers, from the sounds of it, pivoted pretty hard when they realized they had a shot at QB Russell Wilson this offseason. They sent the troops out to court him, Wilson FaceTiming and grabbing dinner with the likes of T.J. Watt and others. After all, this is a quarterback who threw more touchdowns in 15 games last year than the Steelers did collectively in two years.
Yet the Steelers managed a 10-7 record, the Broncos 8-9, because of a considerably worse roster. What are their respective records if you simply switch quarterbacks? Would Wilson have taken the Steelers to the playoffs last year and perhaps even won a game?
Stephen A. Smith thinks so—in fact, he’s confident they win a playoff game this year with Wilson. He doesn’t even rule out the possibility of their reaching the conference finals, and why? Because this is basically the same team that went 10-7 but with a substantial upgrade at quarterback.
“Russell Wilson could play like he did last year in Denver—he could sit up there and play the exact same way—and it would still be damn Heaven compared to what we’ve been watching the last two years”, he said on ESPN’s First Take yesterday.
Wilson went 297-for-447 last year for 3,070 yards with 26 touchdowns to 8 interceptions. He posted the same interception percentage as Kenny Pickett but tripled the latter’s touchdown percentage. He still managed four game-winning drives despite a losing record, playing with arguably a bottom-five defense.
And now Wilson has arguably a better supporting case on offense, even without WR Diontae Johnson. The Steelers likely add at least two more notable skill players to their roster before the start of the season, with a Day 2 draft pick or sooner on the wide receiver position extremely likely.
“Not only that, now he got [George] Pickens to throw the football to. He got [Pat] Freiermuth to throw the football to”, Smith said about Wilson playing with more weapons. “He got running backs in [Najee] Harris and [Jaylen] Warren to run the football”.
The Steelers had one of the best running games in the league in the second half of last season. The Broncos’ running game wasn’t near the bottom, but it was decidedly pedestrian, numbers built on volume. They had one of the least efficient and productive running games in terms of scoring and yards per play. Indeed, starting RB Javonte Williams posted just a 40.6-percent run-success rate, 47th out of 53 players with 100-plus carries. Both Harris and Warren posted better than 48 percent.
But can you just take 2023 Russell Wilson and plop him on the 2024 Steelers and expect them to be much better? That’s impossible to know, especially given so many other changes. Pittsburgh dumped Matt Canada as offensive coordinator, replacing him with Arthur Smith. He may have as big an impact on this season as Wilson, if not more.
