With Russell Wilson officially informed of his impending release by the Denver Broncos, we have another week (at least) of takes of where Wilson should end up with the Steelers labeled a fit by many. One person who doesn’t want to see Wilson in Pittsburgh is analyst Kyle Brandt, who said on Good Morning Football today that Wilson wouldn’t be a fit for the Steelers.
Fellow GMFB panelist Peter Schrager asked is “Pittsburgh the best place for Russ?” From there, Brandt took over.
“Hell no. I have very strong feelings about this. I don’t think that’s a fit personality-wise,” he said. “I think Pittsburgh has a very specific brand of coach and quarterback that they target, history, city, Russ has eccentricities, and that’s fine, I think he is a beat of his own drummer. I can’t possibly fathom the Pittsburgh Steelers and their fan base going to get Russell Wilson as their quarterback.”
The Steelers reportedly aren’t interested in Wilson, and the team seems content to roll with Kenny Pickett and Mason Rudolph or a quarterback like Ryan Tannehill.
In Alex Kozora’s free agency wishlist article, he has a number of quarterbacks whom the Steelers could look to sign. Wilson is not one of them.
Brandt isn’t the first person to bring up Wilson’s personality and how it wouldn’t fit in Pittsburgh. Former Steelers OLB Chad Brown, who’s currently an analyst for the Broncos, said that Wilson wouldn’t work in Pittsburgh due to his personality. In Denver, it caused problems that he had his own office and brought his personal quarterback coach into the building, and it doesn’t feel like Pittsburgh will want to deal with everything that comes with Wilson if they bring him in.
As we’ve discussed frequently on this site, it would also go against what Mike Tomlin said in his press conference at the end of the season about bringing in competition for Pickett. Wilson wouldn’t be a competition because if Pittsburgh signed Wilson, it would be signing him to start. The same goes for every quarterback that Pittsburgh was reportedly not interested in, including Justin Fields, Baker Mayfield and Kirk Cousins.
If you take the comments from the front office and coaching staff at face value, there’s still faith in Pickett. Turning to Wilson would go against what Omar Khan and Tomlin have said this offseason. When you add in the baggage that Wilson might bring with him, it’s just not a move that makes a ton of sense for the Steelers right now. The last thing you want in a quarterback is someone who will divide the locker room, as Brown said happened with Wilson and being disliked by the defensive players on the Seattle Seahawks, and that’s a risk the Steelers would take if they do bring in Wilson.
But it doesn’t seem as if that will be the case, and hopefully in a week we can put all this quarterback speculation surrounding the Steelers to bed.
