The Pittsburgh Steelers overhauled their quarterback room this offseason, with every quarterback from last season now elsewhere and four new quarterbacks in the room, with the most attention on Russell Wilson and Justin Fields. While there’s still a lot of debate in the media about who will start, Wilson seems likely to win the job, and when looking at new coach-quarterback pairings, CBS Sports went with Wilson as Pittsburgh’s starter. His pairing with Mike Tomlin was ranked as the sixth best out of the 12 new coach-quarterback pairings in 2024.
“At 35, Wilson is no longer the ever-elusive big-play artist of his Super Bowl-winning Seattle Seahawks days, but he’s probably slightly steadier than he showed in his tumultuous Broncos stint. Working with an old-school, ground-and-pound leader like Tomlin feels like a perfect match. But the more tantalizing gifts of the young Justin Fields loom large in the background,” Cody Benjamin wrote.
Given the uncertainty over whether Wilson can turn it around after two subpar seasons with the Broncos, it’s a fair placement, especially given that the Steelers haven’t gotten a lot out of their quarterbacks in recent seasons. The pairing between Wilson/Tomlin is going to be more about leadership and personality and making sure the two are meshing, as new offensive coordinator Arthur Smith is going to be handling the play-calling, but having the quarterback and the head coach on the same page is obviously going to be important.
Smith and Tomlin are likely to prioritize the run game to help take some pressure off Wilson, and he had his best seasons when the run game was working during his time in Seattle. Getting back to a run-heavy game plan and lessening what Wilson is asked to do should help him start to return to form.
Wilson and Tomlin ranked below Will Levis and Brian Callahan (No. 5) in Tennessee and Sam Darnold and Kevin O’Connell in Minnesota (No. 4), largely due to the strength of the play callers, although Callahan is untested as a head coach, having served as the Bengals’ offensive coordinator since 2019. It’s interesting to break it down by pairing but only include the head coach, since offensive head coaches are, for the most part, going to get a bump in this sort of exercise. Even so, ranking Wilson/Tomlin No. 6 isn’t egregious by any means.
Wilson could certainly look more like he did in Seattle this season, but there’s still a measure of uncertainty given that there’s a question mark at WR2 in Pittsburgh and we just don’t know if he can turn things around in his age-35 season. But the leadership structure in place with Tomlin and Arthur Smith should give Wilson a good chance to succeed. And hopefully help the Steelers find some playoff success.
