Russell Wilson announced his own impending signing with the Pittsburgh Steelers late one night after a long visit at the team facility. According to Brooke Pryor of ESPN, during that meeting, he never asked for assurances that he would start. And according to Pryor, the Steelers also didn’t offer him any such things at the time. She quoted a source close to those conversations who said that Wilson isn’t afraid of competition.
Of course, at the time that he signed, the Steelers expected Kenny Pickett to be the other quarterback. Pryor adds that they never told Pickett Wilson was going to be the starting quarterback ahead of him. They did tell him that Wilson would take initial first-team reps, but “it would be an ‘open competition’”.
“Competition” has become a dirty word for Steelers fans, especially as it concerns the quarterback position. But the Steelers never used the word “open” to describe the quarterback competition of the 2022 offseason. At the same time, when head coach Mike Tomlin said the Steelers intended to bring in competition for Pickett, he didn’t call that open, either. Regardless, Pickett objected to the plan.
He felt, Pryor writes, “the Steelers were going back on their initial plan to give him the first-team reps, placing him at a disadvantage in any competition. Pickett expressed that he would rather play elsewhere and make a fresh start than compete from second place in Pittsburgh”.
During the 2022 competition, Mitch Trubisky took only first-team reps all summer, though not all the first-team reps. He did not practice on some days, and at those times either Pickett or Mason Rudolph got those reps. However, Trubisky clearly held “pole position”, as Tomlin now describes of Wilson in relation to Justin Fields. Even there, however, they remain open to competition without locking Wilson into the starting lineup for opening day.
We have dealt with competing “reports” about what the Steelers did or did not tell Pickett. Some expressed more definitively than others that they explicitly told him he was going to be Wilson’s backup. That no longer appears to be the case, but is perhaps how he interpreted the situation—likely correctly.
But it’s notable that Wilson reportedly asked for no assurances of a starting job before signing. Did he simply assume that his signing implied that he expected to start? Did he just feel confident that he would win the starting job anyway even if they ran him through the gauntlet?
At this point, I think it’s clear that the Steelers prefer Wilson to start, because they want Fields to watch and learn. They see Fields as a long-term future investment, and he can grow from learning from the veteran. But I still wonder how the offseason would have looked had Pickett didn’t request a trade. Or, excuse me, a change of scenery, which also includes a lovely view from the bench.
