Pittsburgh Steelers QB Russell Wilson suffers from the audacity—nay, the delusion—of optimism. You will be hard-pressed to find him saying anything negative about virtually anybody, and that’s fine. At the same time, given his positivity filter, one must judiciously evaluate his observations. Even still, he seemed pretty happy about how spring practices went.
“It feels great. Everybody’s so excited”, Wilson told reporters during mandatory minicamp this month. “I think the best part, too, [is] the energy’s so high. The way we work, it’s so competitive. Every rep feels like a playoff rep. Every rep feels like how it should. Coach Tomlin does a great job of [making sure of] that, and us players, we’re working. And the leadership on this team is phenomenal”.
Now, Russell Wilson is and is not many things to many people. One thing he certainly is, though, is experienced, so his comments here are interesting. He has 12 years of playing and practice time under his belt, virtually all of it as a starter.
Yet, has he ever described a spring practice session with the Seattle Seahawks or Denver Broncos as being playoff-like? Not that I have been able to find, even without an utterly exhaustive search. One would think that, while playing under Pete Carroll and Sean Payton, he might have had a tough practice or two.
Apparently not as intense as his spring practices with the Steelers. Head coach Mike Tomlin has a reputation for some of the most physical practices across the NFL, even in June. “I haven’t seen a practice like this”, Brian Baldinger said covering OTAs last year. “I mean, you might as well put the pads on”. So perhaps Wilson isn’t just blowing smoke.
Of course, we plebians on the outside have no access to OTAs, and Steelers beat writers don’t cover other teams. Only national media members who visit multiple teams like Baldinger can really compare. Wilson, though, has played under four different head coaches in the past four years in three different cities, so he should have a good baseline to make comparisons as well.
The Steelers organization is extremely motivated to turn things around, and Russell Wilson is a key piece of that puzzle. They want to get even more physical, an endeavor in which new offensive coordinator Arthur Smith is an instrumental component.
One hallmark of Mike Tomlin’s practices is competition periods, though that is harder to do in OTAs. Still, he fills practices with situational football work and makes sure to anoint winners and losers. Sometimes, he intentionally puts his thumb on the scale to create the competitive atmosphere that he desires.
And Russell Wilson genuinely seems to have taken it all in stride. He knew what he was getting himself into when he signed up to join the Steelers. They had a somewhat lengthy courtship, during which Wilson impressed the team with his research into the organization. Maybe he even heard Baldinger’s comments from last year’s OTAs beforehand, but now he gets to steer that competition.
