As the Pittsburgh Steelers courted QB Russell Wilson to sign in March, they employed heavy firepower with team captains like T.J. Watt and Cameron Heyward joining the sales pitch. Minkah Fitzpatrick also joined in on the efforts, each attempting to recruit him. On Heyward’s Not Just Football podcast, Wilson talked about Watt’s messaging to him before he signed.
“I think a big part of it was, [Watt] really wants to win”, Wilson said. “You really want to win. Not just—of course you want to win. Everybody wants to win. But what are we gonna do to get there? How does it look? There’s a thought process there”.
“The leadership here was exciting for me, exciting to just be a part of it and just come in and help us win and help us find a way to do what we all desire”, Wilson added, having previously talked about wanting to get a Super Bowl ring for Watt and Heyward. “And that’s to hold the trophy. That’s my mission every day we wake up”.
T.J. Watt has never experienced a postseason victory since the Steelers drafted him in 2017. A first-round pick, his late-first-round selection was the byproduct of the Steelers advancing to the conference finals a year prior. But they haven’t won another postseason game since, going 0-4 and missing the playoffs altogether thrice.
Back in March Watt said it was “extremely embarrassing” to be this deep in his career without a playoff win. The Steelers are in their longest playoff drought since the NFL merger, and there’s no signs of it stopping. They hope that Russell Wilson can help pull them out of the ditch, but he’s been in the ditch himself.
After all, the Steelers were only able to acquire Wilson because the Denver Broncos released him. While they did so largely because of his enormous contract, the fact is they gave up a ton to acquire him and they abandoned the experiment after two years.
The fact that Watt and other defenders did go into overtime to try to recruit Russell Wilson speaks to their desperation with the state of the team at that time. Exiting the 2023 season, the Steelers looked set to juggle Kenny Pickett and Mason Rudolph as their quarterback options.
Granted, Wilson still has to prove that he can offer anything more than they did, and Watt certainly hopes that he does. All of Steeler Nation hopes the same, because we’ve all been waiting as long as Watt. I’ve been writing here since 2013, and the Steelers have three postseason wins since then—none since 2016.
