In today’s world of sports, there seems to be a lot of “all or nothing” when it comes to playing styles across sports.
In baseball, it’s home run or strikeout. Basketball, it revolves around 3-pointers or layups — no midrange shots. In football, lately it seems to be all about taking a deep shot or playing it safe, no in between.
New Pittsburgh Steelers’ quarterback Russell Wilson seems to portray that very clearly in today’s NFL, which has NFL analyst Warren Sharp of Sharp Football stating in his preview for the 2024 NFL Draft that Wilson “lives by the mantra” of taking a layup or a deep shot with no real in between.
“He lives by the mantra of shooting a three-pointer or taking a layup,” Sharp writes regarding Wilson, according to Sharp Football. “Since he entered the NFL in 2012, Wilson has thrown the football on the intermediate level (10-19 yards downfield) just 17.0% of the time, which is 44th in the league. The league rate is 18.9% over that period. His 14.9% deep throw rate is the third highest in the league, trailing only a one-year sample from Will Levis (22.4%), and… Justin Fields (15.1%).
“Last year, Wilson threw the ball at or behind the line of scrimmage on 30.2% of his throws (second in the league) and deep on 14.5% (third). No quarterback in the league threw the ball at the intermediate level at a lower rate (11.0%) than Wilson did.”
The numbers are rather startling, but as it turns out it’s rather similar to what the Steelers also have at the quarterback position in Justin Fields, as Sharp points out.
Wilson stills throws a tremendous deep ball, consistently hitting the deep shot down the field. As Sharp pointed out, his tendency to rip it deep was the third-best in football. Take away the one-year sample size from Tennessee’s Will Levis and Wilson is only behind Fields when it comes to taking shots deep.
That should work well in Pittsburgh’s offense under new coordinator Arthur Smith. Wilson is smart with the football, has success hitting the deep ball and won’t make the killer mistakes if the play isn’t there. What is concerning though is his limited usage in the middle of the field.
In Smith’s scheme, there are a lot of in-breaking routes targeting the middle of the field. Last season, Atlanta quarterbacks Desmond Ridder and Taylor Heinicke took advantage of the middle of the field, hitting windows within the heart of the defense. In recent years, the Steelers’ offense hasn’t utilized the middle of the field.
With Smith as the offensive coordinator in the NFL since 2019, his quarterbacks have targeted the middle of the field between 12-15% of the time. Last season in Denver? Wilson targeted the middle of field just 5.8% of the time. That’s a drastic drop-off.
Maybe some of that was Sean Payton’s scheme, not utilizing the middle of the field because he didn’t trust Wilson. Or maybe that was Wilson not trusting himself to still make those throws.
Whatever it was, Wilson is going to have to do it in Smith’s scheme. It’s a key staple of Smith’s run-heavy play-action passing offense. But what Wilson can’t do is either throw it short or air it out. That’s not going to help Pittsburgh’s offense achieve not only balance with a run-heavy approach, but also elevate a passing attack that has been poor in recent years.
Living by that mantra of short or deep, all or nothing, has to be a key thing that Wilson changes in his tenure in Pittsburgh under Smith. So, too, does Fields, for that matter. If not, neither quarterback is going to be a good fit overall in Smith’s scheme and the Steelers could be looking for a quarterback again rather quickly.
