The Pittsburgh Steelers have taken a very cautious approach when it comes to their intended starting quarterback Russell Wilson. After a calf injury suffered on July 24, the day before the team’s first training-camp practice, he ended up aggravating that injury a few days before the start of the regular season. He has been suiting up as an emergency third quarterback for each game, but he has not logged a full practice since the season started. That is scheduled to change this week.
Mike Tomlin spoke to the media Tuesday and via the Steelers’ YouTube channel said that this week will be different. Wednesday, the first practice of the week, should be Wilson’s first full practice since Sept. 4.
“We’re in a little bit different place as I stand here today with Russ this week than we have been in recent weeks. Just met with him and the training staff in preparation for tomorrow. Tomorrow will be the first Wednesday that he’ll be a scheduled full participant. We’ll see what that leads us first,” Tomlin said during his weekly press conference. “We’ll see if he’s able to obviously pull it off and get through the session. And if he does, what does the quality of that work look like? His ability to protect himself, et cetera, are some of the conversations that we’ve been having, but just been having more in a hypothetical way. He’s at the point of health now where we can work on a Wednesday without restrictions, and so we’ll do so.”
After a 3-0 start for Justin Fields, the Steelers have gone on a small skid with two-straight losses. That has made for a lot of speculation early in the week about the potential of Wilson getting his QB1 job back as a fully healthy participant.
According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Gerry Dulac, Russell Wilson has been medically cleared for a couple weeks but that the Steelers have been exercising extreme caution given that his calf injury has already been aggravated once. It made that decision easier that the Steelers were 3-0 at the time.
Wilson will get reps with the second-team offense at first. It is only prudent to allow Fields the first-team reps since Wilson’s will need to prove his health with a full week of work. The Steelers are preparing Fields as the starter, but Wilson could end up as an active on game day for the first time all season.
We will see where things go from there as Tomlin will be forced to name an official starter sooner rather than later with a healthy Wilson.
