After practicing in full last Thursday and Friday ahead of the Week 3 matchup against the Los Angeles Chargers, Pittsburgh Steelers rookie wide receiver Roman Wilson appeared in line to make his NFL debut.
But before kickoff on Sunday, Wilson was inactive once again, continuing a trend for the young receiver.
Wilson suffered an ankle injury on July 30, the first day of padded practices at training camp for the Steelers, which kept him out the rest of training camp and the preseason. He’s returned to practice in limited fashion in recent weeks, and then went fully on Thursday and Friday last week, but that still wasn’t enough for him to get a hat on game day.
For head coach Mike Tomlin, he had one simple message for Wilson Tuesday his weekly press conference.
“He just gotta keep working. It is very difficult to get on a moving train,” Tomlin said of Wilson, according to video via the Steelers’ YouTube page. “All you gotta do is look at Dean Lowry, for example. There’s a veteran guy that missed a substantial amount of training camp and it was a third game before he got a hat although he’s been healthy for three weeks. And so that gets multiplied when you’re talking about a guy that has no NFL experience like Roman.
“And so my advice to Roman is to keep working and take that opportunity when that door is left ajar and to be ready when it is.”
After missing so much time in the team-building process in training camp and trying to get onto a moving train during the season, it’s taking longer than expected for Wilson to get up to speed.
Though he said last week he was hopeful to make his NFL debut against his old college coach in Jim Harbaugh, that didn’t happen. It had to be a bit disappointing for Wilson, but he can’t dwell on it. Head down, keep working.
As Tomlin stated, once that opportunity comes knocking, Wilson has to answer it.
It’s unclear when that opportunity will come, especially after Calvin Austin III had a big day against the Chargers in the passing game while Scotty Miller stepped up and produced, too. Maybe that opportunity for Wilson comes in Week 4 on the road against the Indianapolis Colts.
For now, he has to just keep working, doing everything he can during the week to prove he’s ready to get a helmet and produce. Opportunity is coming, eventually. He just has to be ready for it.
