Russell Wilson made his debut with the Pittsburgh Steelers in their second preseason game on Saturday night against the Buffalo Bills. He was held out of the first preseason game as a precaution while they continued to play it safe with his calf injury.
That injury, suffered while pushing a sled during the conditioning test the day before camp began, kept him out of the first week of training camp. The Steelers slowly ramped his participation up over the last week or two, and he has been running first-team reps for the last week.
Wilson was only meant to play four drives against the Bills based on what Mike Tomlin said in his press conference on Thursday, but he ended up playing five. It didn’t exactly go according to plan with four punts and a missed field goal. But the important thing is Wilson made it through the game without any lingering calf issues of note.
“I felt great out there, honestly. I felt strong,” Wilson told reporters in a video posted on the Steelers’ YouTube page. “I wasn’t thinking about it. Anytime you have an injury, sometimes if you’re worried about it, you’re kind of, in the back of your mind, you’re thinking about it. Didn’t feel that at all. Really, the past week or so, and I felt pretty good this past week.”
Calf injuries can linger. Wilson told the media at the beginning of camp that, if it were up to him, he would have been practicing from the start. It was never viewed as a major issue, but Tomlin held him back to prevent a small issue from becoming a large one.
It appears that paid off with Wilson making it through a decent workload without issue. He was under pressure for much of the game, too. The offensive line didn’t do him any favors and he ended up taking three sacks.
In total, Wilson completed eight of his 10 attempts for 47 yards and a passer rating of 86.2. The sacks and a couple penalties kept the offense out of rhythm and behind the chains, so we never got to see Wilson get comfortable.
The biggest positive from Wilson came on a play that ultimately went down as an incompletion. He let one fly to George Pickens along the left sideline for what would have been the biggest play of the game. It looks like Pickens tapped both toes, but it was upheld as out of bounds after Tomlin challenged the ruling.
Wilson has been given pole position all offseason and was listed as the starting quarterback on each of the last two depth charts. Fields outplayed Wilson tonight, but it wasn’t by much and it was against lesser competition. Some will likely try to paint Fields as gaining ground in the competition because of the few exciting plays he made. Upon first watch, I don’t think this game did very much to move the needle in either direction.
It is also important to keep in mind that the preseason games are another form of practice. They are mostly running base package plays and are working on specific things. Mike Tomlin mentioned at halftime that the Steelers wanted to see some designed QB runs for Fields, for example.
The main takeaway here is that Russell Wilson is healthy, and the patience with getting him back into action seems to have paid off.
