All of the Pittsburgh Steelers’ scheduled draft picks are now in the books. They could potentially trade back into the late sixth or seventh round, but Mike Tomlin and Omar Khan already gave their post-draft press conference. They discussed all the prospects via the video posted on the Steelers’ YouTube channel, but Tomlin’s answer on WR Roman Wilson stuck out to me.
Tomlin was asked if he feels like Wilson’s skill set complements George Pickens in the WR room.
“Just on his merits alone, forget how he complements anyone. He’s a good player,” Tomlin said. “He’s competitive, he creates separation at break points. He’s battle-tested on the interior portions of the field. He comes from a winning program. You can’t say enough about the winning component in terms of how it shapes their relationships with the game and what they’re willing to do…he checks a lot of those boxes.”
Anyone who has watched the Steelers over the last three or four years knows just how little the middle portions of the field have been used. It has been a large problem with the offense, so that comment in particular from Tomlin stuck out to me.
Tomlin has had his eyes on Wilson dating back to at least the Senior Bowl, where he encouraged Quinyon Mitchell to match up against Wilson as the best CB and WR in that group. That is a matchup that Wilson won, by the way.
“[The Senior Bowl] is a great atmosphere for getting to know the guys, to getting up close with them, to watching them compete, to maybe give them some instruction and see how they take instruction and apply it to play,” Tomlin said. “I think we interviewed him a couple of times in Mobile. We had an opportunity to get some intimate moments in practice sessions on the field, challenging him to compete against some people.”
Between getting that up-close look at the Senior Bowl, and the pedigree and football acumen that comes with playing for Jim Harbaugh on a national championship team, Wilson brings a lot to like to the Steelers’ wide receiver room. He said in a recent interview with Justin Melo from The Draft Network that their mantra at Michigan was “no block, no rock.” He knows that he needs to contribute in every phase of the offense, and that is exactly what the Steelers need to take their offense to the next level.
