The Pittsburgh Steelers changed their conditioning staff this year and it nearly cost them Russell Wilson. The veteran quarterback suffered a calf injury during a conditioning test, and it has kept him out of four practices. He has yet to participate meaningfully on the field in training camp, because he had to push a blocking sled.
One wonders if this incident caused an immediate reconsideration of the Steelers’ methods, as Ray Fittipaldo suggests. One can reasonably say that it’s probably not useful to know how well Russell Wilson can push a blocking sled.
“I’m guessing it’s not gonna happen again”, Fittipaldo said on KDKA’s No. 1 Cochran Sports Showdown on Sunday. “I think you’ll see offensive linemen pushing sleds in the future, but I don’t think you’ll see quarterbacks do it. Big mistake. They’re lucky it was only a calf strain”.
For one reason or another, the Steelers decided to replace long-time strength and conditioning coach Marcel Pastoor and his staff this year. They replaced him with Phil Matusz, who made Russell Wilson pushing a blocking sled “part of their conditioning routine. He came from Boston College. It’s different”, Fittipaldo said.
Obviously, Wilson wasn’t the only person pushing the blocking sled, but conditioning tests specific to position groups sounds like a pretty reasonable way to go. Quarterbacks don’t have to block very often, certainly not from a three-point stance, so just…don’t do that.
Now, that doesn’t mean that Wilson should be incapable of pushing a blocking sled or anything like that. It’s a fine workout, if my memories of Peewee football serve me well. But there’s a reason Fittipaldo, a former offensive lineman himself, is calling this out as dumb.
And to his point, the Steelers are lucky that Wilson didn’t suffer a more serious injury—assuming that he won’t. Calf injuries can linger, as the Cincinnati Bengals found out with Joe Burrow last year. But because he injured himself pushing a blocking sled, he has missed four days of practice with a new team.
No, that won’t be the reason the Steelers come short of the Super Bowl this year, but I haven’t found anybody willing to justify this particular aspect of their new conditioning test. Even the Ravens, who had a notoriously difficult test, made changes to their methods. I don’t think Lamar Jackson is pushing any sleds out there.
There will be growing pains when a team switches strength and conditioning staffs, for obvious reasons. There’s a good chance you’re significantly changing the structure of how you manage your players, after all. They even adjusted when they conduct their training camp practices. It’s just unfortunate that one of those growing pains was Russell Wilson’s calf, which probably has an X account already.
