Mike Tomlin and the Pittsburgh Steelers have been proceeding cautiously when it comes to Russell Wilson fully participating at practice. He injured his calf during the conditioning test the day before camp began. While Wilson stated he would have played in a game if this were during the season, Tomlin has been holding him back to prevent a small issue from growing into a larger one. Per Alex Kozora on-site at training camp, Wilson has now thrown his first pass of training camp during the 11-on-11 team sessions.
Here are a couple photos of that pass, completed to WR Duece Watts, via Tim Rice on X.
He sat out the first couple practices altogether, and has since slowly been increasing his workload, including the individual drills at the beginning of practice and the 7-on-7 drills. He has also done some 11-on-11 work but had strictly been handing the ball off on run plays before subbing out for Justin Fields up to this point.
Tom Pelissero reported on NFL Network yesterday live from Latrobe that there was optimism for a Wilson return this upcoming week. He was told there would be a doctor appointment to fully clear him and the hope is that he would return this week. This is obviously a good sign of that ultimately happening.
While Wilson has been out, Fields has made the most of his extra reps with the first-team offense. Tomlin reiterated pole position for Russell Wilson as recently as the day before training camp began, but Fields has reportedly “opened some eyes” with his performance over the first 10 days of practice.
That means Wilson has his work cut out for him to prove that he deserved the pole position he was given. Tomlin will likely offer an update on Wilson’s status following today’s practice in his daily press conference.
