The path to winning football games can take many forms for many NFL teams. The best teams in the league can beat you on offense, defense, or special teams on any given Sunday. The Pittsburgh Steelers don’t quite fall into that category. If they are going to win in 2024, we know what the recipe is going to be. Do enough on offense to give the defense a chance to win the game. Sure they have a better chance at picking up a few shootout victories with this roster than they did last season, but it’s not going to be something they can rely on every week by any means. Russell Wilson isn’t Patrick Mahomes.
Their quarterback play will certainly be better than the disaster it was last year, but what is the quantifier to judge whether Russell Wilson is successful? From a fan perspective, it certainly feels a lot better and more comfortable to have him under center, but what about the players?
And that’s exactly what success for Wilson comes down to in the eyes of NFL analyst Dan Orlovsky. He shared his thoughts on the NFL Live podcast.
“[Wilson] will be on the bench if he stresses this defense too much,” Orlovsky said. “I think there’s two ways that quarterbacks sometimes stress defenses. Number one, they’re so cautious with the footfall, and they never wanna do anything bad that the defense sits there and goes, ‘If we give up 10 points, the game’s over because our quarterback can’t score more than that’. Or, they try to do so much, and Russ can fall into this trap of trying to force the ball so much and make so many big plays to prove that he’s still that guy that all of a sudden, mistakes become an issue… And I think he’s gotta find that fine line this year of not stressing that.”
Russell Wilson had some unbelievable years with the Seattle Seahawks, where he was even in the MVP race. He led them to a Super Bowl win and was two yards away from a second. He’s been an All-Pro, led the league in passing yards, and been a no-brainer Pro Bowler. He’s not that guy anymore.
And the Steelers don’t need him to be. What they really don’t need him to be, as Orlovsky alluded to, is for Wilson to think he has to be the guy he was five or so years ago. It’s hard for athletes on the other side of their prime, especially when they were as talented at their peak as Wilson was, to admit that. But if Wilson is the leader he portrays himself as, and claims to be, he should be able to realize this.
But then the problem becomes a potential overcorrection, where Russell Wilson trusts the defense too much to win games for him. This defense is good, but they aren’t quite the 2000 Ravens or the 2007 Bears. There will be games where they have a bad matchup or just can’t generate a ton of stops. And those will be the moments where Pittsburgh needs a little vintage Russ magic. I think he’s still got a few moments lurking in him.
