Pittsburgh Steelers QB Russell Wilson dressed as the emergency quarterback for the fifth straight game on Sunday night. He has been working his way back from the aggravation of a calf injury, Justin Fields starting in his place. But at what point does Justin Fields simply just start, ahead of Wilson? Or do we even reach that point at all?
Prior to Sunday’s game on Football Night in America, Wilson spoke to Mike Tirico, who said that Wilson told him he feels “for certain” he will be ready to play in two weeks against the New York Jets, and is already thinking about Week 6 against the Las Vegas Raiders. Wilson, he suggested, sounded less sure of his availability then. But Melissa Stark offered slightly stronger reporting.
Russell Wilson told Stark, “He ramped it up in practice this week, participating in all the quarterback drills. He said he felt great, and he should be ready to go next week. He stressed it’s a long season, he wants to make sure he’s 100 percent, saying he’s very close. Once he’s back on the field, get ready for another one of his signature catchphrases. In Pittsburgh, it’ll be ‘Win the Seventh’”.
Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin noted that this past week was a significant one in ramping up Wilson’s workload. As best we can tell, he finally graduated to actual 11-on-11 work, but Wilson painted a more robust picture.
Russell Wilson is still listed as the starting quarterback on the Steelers’ depth chart and is their lone offensive captain. He clearly still commands great respect in the locker room, but his teammates also clearly like Fields. After all, they have done pretty well with Fields leading the offense. In fact, they have worked with Fields more than they have with Wilson at this point.
That’s because Wilson injured his calf during the conditioning test to open training camp. He spent weeks practicing only in a limited capacity after that, missing the first preseason game. On the Thursday before the season opener, he aggravated that calf injury and continues to recover from that.
“I thought this game might have a little something to do with [the Russell Wilson decision], too”, Cris Collinsworth said during the broadcast of Sunday’s game. “I thought if Justin Fields looked sharp…maybe he holds it off a little bit longer. But so far, I’d say Russell [Wilson] has a chance”.
The fact that Tomlin is still leaving him inactive rather than as the backup tells us they are still not comfortable with where he is from a physical perspective. He is not even getting the sort of practice workload that would be suitable for the backup under these circumstances. They could be slow playing his rehab, one might suspect, as they try to figure out what they have in Justin Fields.
There are still those who believe it would only take a bad game or two from Fields for Tomlin to pull the plug and insert Wilson (when he isn’t inactive, of course). But that assumes Wilson is healthy first, something he has yet to prove. If the reporting from Tirico and Stark are to be believed, though, Wilson sounds like he expects to be able to play by Week 7 at the latest, if not as early as next week.
