Leading up to the 2024 NFL Draft, it was pretty clear that the Pittsburgh Steelers needed to address the wide receiver position. They had added a bunch of lower-level free agents, but the plan opposite George Pickens seemed unclear. With the way the board broke, the Steelers opted to address the offensive line with their first two picks. They finally addressed the position in the third round with Michigan WR Roman Wilson.
There are plenty of reasons to be excited for Wilson, but his smaller stature and his experience being mostly in the slot in college didn’t do much to answer the WR2 questions.
Yahoo Sports insider Charles Robinson spent time at one of the Steelers’ practices last week and passed along some information that he gathered from talking to people around the team.
“A sprained ankle early in camp threw a wrench in the staff’s buzz over third-round wideout Roman Wilson,” Robinson wrote. “Largely because Wilson was showing enough development to have made a Brandon Aiyuk trade pursuit a little less intense. Whether Aiyuk is added or not, Wilson can be a big piece in 2024. But he’s got to get on the field sooner than later.”
Wilson suffered an ankle injury on the first day of padded practice on July 30. He avoided a major setback that could have threatened his rookie season, but he still missed valuable time with the pads on, including all three preseason games. His injury was labeled week to week. It has been nearly three-and-a-half weeks since the injury, and he still hadn’t resumed practice as of the beginning of this week.
This led Pittsburgh Post-Gazette insider Ray Fittipaldo to wonder if Wilson could start the season on IR. Wilson later spoke to the media and confirmed he would be missing the preseason finale, but vowed “I’ll be back soon.”
Prior to his injury, Wilson was starting to ramp up at training camp. According to Alex Kozora’s training camp stats, Roman Wilson caught all seven of his targets for 97 yards and a touchdown over the first four practices. That made him the team leader in receptions, yards, and touchdowns at the time.
Mike Tomlin has talked a lot about how he weights various offseason activities. Wilson’s impressive trajectory was almost entirely before the pads came on. Padded practices mean more than unpadded, and preseason games are the most important with it being the most game-like setting of the process.
We have been at a bit of a standstill with the Brandon Aiyuk trade saga. The Steelers have reportedly made their best offer. Given the lack of movement, it seems that GM Omar Khan has stood on that offer with the ball in the San Francisco 49ers’ court.
If Wilson hadn’t shown a solid trajectory could Khan have been a little more aggressive in the Aiyuk situation? It is hard to tell, but that seems to be what Robinson is suggesting. How much did Wilson’s injury play into the Steelers making an offer in the first place? Any answer there would just be speculation.
The big takeaway here is that the coaching staff was excited about Roman Wilson’s potential early in the process. That is obviously a big positive. Hopefully he can return for Week 1 to begin making up for lost time.
