In the span of one week, the Pittsburgh Steelers completely remade their quarterback room, adding Russell Wilson as a free agent, trading away Kenny Pickett and trading for Justin Fields. All of a sudden, the Steelers are primed to enter the 2024 season with Wilson and Fields as their top two quarterbacks, giving them a much better quarterback room now than they had at the end of the 2023 season. On Good Morning Football, Peter Schrager praised the Steelers for getting better without having to spend a lot to do so.
“Brilliant stuff out of Pittsburgh this weekend,” Shrager said. “It’s not just bringing these two guys in. It’s finding a way to sadly move on from Pickett, move him to somewhere else, and say ‘Ok, we got our two guys now heading into the season,’ and I thought Pittsburgh got a lot better and didn’t do so by spending a billion dollars in the process.”
Pittsburgh was in the unique position of being able to sign Wilson for the veteran minimum because the Denver Broncos are paying the most of his contract after releasing him. Meanwhile, the market for Fields shriveled up with QB-needy teams looking elsewhere or planning to find their quarterback of the future in the draft. That left Pittsburgh as a viable option after the team dealt Kenny Pickett to the Philadelphia Eagles, leaving Wilson as the only quarterback under contract, and now the Steelers get an experienced backup who has some upside due to his athleticism.
Wilson is the starter for now, but even if the Steelers get nothing out of Fields, trading a sixth-round pick to bring him in and see what you have in the former first-round pick is just good business. At worst, you have a backup quarterback who’s been a primary starter in the league for two-plus seasons, and at best, you have someone who can be your quarterback of the future. Wilson is going to turn 36 during next season, so it’s tough to rely on him for longer than a year-to-year basis, and Fields has some potential that the Steelers might look to unlock. The fact that the cost to bring them both in was $1.2 million and a conditional sixth-round pick is really shrewd from general manager Omar Khan, who also got a top-100 pick from the Eagles in the Pickett trade.
The Steelers aren’t done making moves yet, either, as the team still has a number of holes and the NFL draft is still over a month away. It’s an exciting time to be a Steelers fan right now, as free agent WR Mike Williams is also set to visit the team, and the Steelers are serious about competing now and in the future.
