Everybody has been throwing around their Russell Wilson takes since he signed with the Pittsburgh Steelers, and the overwhelming majority of them have been positive. If you were looking for another feel-good story about how perfect the union is between Wilson and the Steelers, turn away now. Nick Wright offers quite a different opinion.
“The level of excitement surrounding Russ is baffling to me,” Wright said on his What’s Wright podcast posted on YouTube. “The answer is he’s not good anymore. He’s not good anymore. Now, is he better than Kenny Pickett? Probably.”
If you compare Wilson to the standard he set for himself earlier in his career with the Seattle Seahawks, then I suppose it is fair to say he is not good anymore, or at least not as good. But Wright admits he is probably an upgrade over Pickett, and the Steelers only spent $1.21 million on him.
The Steelers went 10-7, including a 5-1 record in the difficult AFC North division, and qualified for the playoffs in the process. The team is built to where the quarterback doesn’t need to play like an All-Pro for there to be success. Any incremental upgrade, especially at the quarterback position, makes the Steelers a more dangerous team.
Wright’s co-host offered a counterpoint, saying Wilson has a decent shot at winning a playoff game which led to a strong reaction from Wright.
“Winning a playoff game? I think it’s setting the bar too high,” Wright said. “Guys, Pete Carroll looked at the situation, said, I theoretically have a franchise quarterback in his prime. We’re fine trading him…Nate Hackett, after being around Russ all offseason, all training camp, all preseason through that game, was like, do we have a better chance at our kicker making the longest kick of his life?”
Of course, he is talking about Wilson’s first game in Denver against his former team. With 20 seconds left in the game, on 4th-and-5, Hackett chose to attempt a 64-yard field goal rather than put the game in his nearly $250 million quarterback’s hands.
It is more of an indictment on Hackett than Wilson, but Wright continued with more supposed evidence of Wilson’s downfall in his time with Sean Payton.
“So they bring in Sean Payton to fix Russ. And less than a year in, Sean Payton’s like, you’re benched, give me Stidham,” Wright said. “The idea that all of these guys have been wrong and there is something to unlock with Russell Wilson. Maybe I’ll be proven wrong. I doubt it, though.”
Right or wrong, quarterbacks often get judged on their win-loss records first and their stats second. Wilson is a combined 17-27 over his last three seasons, so some of the criticisms are fair. But it’s important to remember what the Steelers accomplished just last season without what many would consider a starting-quality quarterback. Plus, this is a team that barely lost anybody notable in free agency and continues to add pieces around the roster.
