Pittsburgh Steelers rookie WR Roman Wilson practiced fully on Thursday and Friday, ending the week with no injury designation. In spite of that, head coach Mike Tomlin left him on the inactive list, and evidently a healthy scratch. From the sounds of it, I’m not sure he is in a rush to find his rookie a helmet.
Even with Ben Skowronek on the Reserve/Injured List, the Steelers opted to dress only four wide receivers rather than Wilson. They could have used him when Van Jefferson suffered an eye injury, but they made do, partially with Cordarrelle Patterson. And that was not by accident.
Tomlin fielded a question about dressing only four receivers after the game, and he immediately referenced Patterson, calling him a “dual purpose” player.
“He played some wide out and running back today, and gives us that flexibility,” Tomlin said of Patterson, via the Steelers’ website.
So Patterson essentially is the fifth wide receiver, over Roman Wilson, in a tight end-heavy offense.
The Steelers do make heavy use of tight ends, even with MyCole Pruitt out Sunday, joining Wilson as an inactive. We saw plenty of Pat Freiermuth and Darnell Washington, though neither of them caught any touchdowns this week.
“We value position flexibility. It allows us to make decisions to strengthen other areas,” Tomlin insisted, without referencing Wilson. “We went with four wide outs. We carried an extra D-lineman today because we knew we were in for a run game fight. Appreciative of the efforts, but I’m not surprised by it.”
The Steelers did hold the Chargers’ run game in check, which was no small feat, and they did dress DL Dean Lowry for the first time this season. They also got contributions at wide receiver from Scotty Miller and Calvin Austin III without Wilson’s aid.
A third-round pick out of Michigan, Roman Wilson suffered an ankle injury early in training camp. Although he impressed up to that point, he missed so much time that he is just beginning to catch up. After injuring his ankle the fourth day in camp, he missed all of the preseason.
It was only in the lead-up to the start of the regular season that Wilson began practicing again. And he didn’t practice a single day in full until Thursday of last week, slipping to limited on Friday. He started out this week limited before practicing fully Thursday and Friday, and most expected him to dress.
If the Steelers can keep winning games without Roman Wilson contributing, then so be it. Tomlin is not going to be in a rush to make changes before changes show themselves to be necessary. Right now, they don’t look like they need him to succeed, but he couldn’t hurt.
While he may be healthy now, Roman Wilson is still catching up on physical reps. We can’t forget that we are talking about a rookie who missed about a month of on-field work. While he might be back working in recent weeks, they are still learning about him. He will get his chance at some point, maybe even next week, but yesterday was a reminder he still has everything to earn.
