While Pittsburgh Steelers rookie WR Roman Wilson made his season debut in Week 6 against the Las Vegas Raiders, he only played five snaps and didn’t receive a target in the team’s 32-13 win. During his weekly press conference, Mike Tomlin was asked how he would assess Wilson’s NFL debut after just getting limited snaps.
“That’s how I would assess it, limited,” Tomlin said Tuesday via the team’s YouTube channel.
He explained it’s a different discussion when it comes to Roman Wilson being healthy and ready to play versus Russell Wilson since the former has “no background.”
“It is a process, his readiness. Not only first, his health, but then we’re also talking about a guy who’s getting on a moving train with no background. It’s a significantly different discussion than the one we were having regarding Russ. He’s just got to continue to come to work every day, and when the door is left ajar, he’s got to step through it.
Even though Pittsburgh’s depth is thin at wide receiver, Roman Wilson is still a rookie who didn’t play at all in the preseason after getting injured the first day the pads came on in training camp. That cost him some valuable development time, and that’s one reason why it’s been such a slow process getting him ready to contribute.
As a third-round pick, the expectations for Roman Wilson coming into the season were at least that he would be a contributor and one of Pittsburgh’s main receiving options, but obviously that has yet to come to fruition. Pittsburgh hasn’t gotten a lot of production from its receiver room, so at some point, it would make sense if he played a bigger role down the line, but Tomlin clearly doesn’t feel as if he’s ready to be a major contributor yet at this point.
It would make sense if Wilson’s role increased after the bye week, as he’s been practicing in full for multiple weeks now and was able to see the field on Sunday. With two more games before the bye, the expectation should be that Wilson’s role will continue to be limited, but an extra week of work to get up to speed could lead things to increase come Week 10.
It’s understandable that the Steelers are being cautious with Roman Wilson, as they are with a lot of their rookies, and especially with him coming off an injury. But if the receiver room continues to produce little outside of George Pickens, it would make sense for the Steelers to try to get him more involved to give the offense another option.
