Pittsburgh Steelers QB Russell Wilson didn’t lead a scoring drive against the Buffalo Bills, going 8-10 for 48 yards in a performance that was marred by three sacks. However, Arthur Smith told reporters today that he gave Wilson a lot of credit for playing and competing and getting reps in, and that he didn’t call the same suite of plays for Wilson as he did for Fields.
“I give Russ a lot of credit for going out there. I think a lot of guys in that situation may have tapped out. He hadn’t had enough reps. He wanted to go out there,” Smith said. “We limited him in some of the schemes we were trying to do, it didn’t go, clearly the way that we wanted it to, so there were some things that I didn’t call for him that I did call for Justin,” Smith said via Aaron Becker of YardBarker on Twitter.
It makes some sense that some stuff that was called for Fields wasn’t called for Wilson, as Fields has added mobility and some plays work better with Fields under center. But we don’t know the full suite of plays that Smith could’ve called for Wilson and didn’t, and maybe if Wilson had more options at his disposal, his performance would’ve been a little bit better.
It’s a little interesting to hear Smith give Wilson credit for going out and playing, and it implies that Wilson likely still isn’t 100% healthy as he works his way back from a calf injury suffered during the team’s training camp conditioning test. Wilson had been ramping up his work in practice, but a practice setting where the quarterback can’t get hit is obviously going to be a lot different than a game where he’s under duress, which also happened way more often on Saturday than it should’ve.
Even if the Steelers didn’t limit Wilson in the schemes he ran, if the pass protection still failed to hold up, it probably wouldn’t have made all that much of a difference in his play. But it’s notable, and it’s a moment of candor from Smith to admit that the Steelers might not have been operating at full capacity with Wilson under center.
The prevailing thought is still that Wilson will be under center come Week 1, but if his injury is lingering and the team can’t run their full offense under him, then the door will be cracked open for Fields to come and start, a thought that’s gained a lot of traction over the last few days.
We’ll see what Mike Tomlin has to say about Wilson and his participation against the Detroit Lions in Pittsburgh’s preseason finale later this week, but the quarterback competition has at least gotten just a bit more interesting this week.
