In the five months since Russell Wilson and Justin Fields joined Pittsburgh Steelers, both have largely deflected questions about being the starter. Whether that is genuinely showing deference and respect to each other or just being political, that is what the tone has been all along.
Sal Paolantonio asked Wilson in blunt terms how much he wants to be the Steelers’ starting quarterback in 2024.
“Yeah, I think it’s something that’s super important to me,” Wilson said during a clip of Paolantonio’s interview on ESPN’s NFL Live. “I just wanna lead our guys down the field and go win, and I’m focused on one day at a time. I’m just focused on being the best version of myself every day.”
I wouldn’t classify it as breaking news that any NFL player wants to be a starter. That is how all high-level athletes are wired. But this is the first time that Wilson has put it in such simple terms without sidestepping the question.
The circumstances around his signing with the team and Kenny Pickett’s subsequent exit probably told us all we needed to know. The Steelers brought Wilson to Pittsburgh to be the starter. He wouldn’t have signed for $1.21 million otherwise. Reports indicated that Pickett felt misled about the nature of the quarterback competition, which is what ultimately led to his trade request.
To be fair, those decisions with Wilson were made with the idea that he would be in a quarterback room with Pickett. Fields didn’t seem like a possibility at the time. And nobody could have expected that Wilson would end up sitting out for much of the first two weeks of training camp due to a minor calf injury. That gave Fields extra opportunities to show the coaching staff what he is capable of, and by all accounts that process went very well for him.
Wilson said right away that he would’ve been practicing if it were up to him. Head coach Mike Tomlin held him out to prevent a small issue from becoming a large one. But that meant watching his competition excel throughout practice and earn praise throughout the media for two weeks.
“At the end of the day, we both wanna be on the field, but there’s only one quarterback that can be on the field at once,” Fields told Paolantonio. “So I think we push each other every day. So a day that I might get up not feeling too well, I know I gotta be my best at practice ’cause he’s gonna do the same thing.”
That competition is good for both players to make sure they are constantly putting their best foot forward.
Before signing with the Steelers, Wilson made it clear that he has his sights set on winning more Lombardi trophies. That clearly isn’t the mentality of somebody who views himself as a backup. Wilson’s legacy is on the line to a certain extent.
He is a Super Bowl-winning QB. Nobody can take that away from him, but he is firmly on the Hall-of-Fame bubble. The two-year disaster with the Denver Broncos tarnished that to a degree, but a strong comeback would quickly make everybody forget about that small chapter in his otherwise stellar career.
