I couldn’t even wait to save this all for our Monday morning Stats of the Weird. Which, don’t worry, is definitely still being posted. But QB Russell Wilson was remarkable in the Pittsburgh Steelers’ 44-38 win over the Cincinnati Bengals. So good that he deserves his own posts of de facto stats of the weird.
So let’s count the ways Wilson dominated on Sunday and how rare some of the numbers he put up have been in Pittsburgh.
– Wilson finished the day with 414 yards and three touchdowns. He becomes just the third quarterback in Steelers’ history to have such a regular-season performance, joining Ben Roethlisberger (who did it five times) and Tommy Maddox in the team’s 34-34 tie against the Atlanta Falcons in 2002.
– Wilson is the first Steelers quarterback to throw for 400 yards in a game since Ben Roethlisberger in 2018. That day, Roethlisberger threw for 462 in a loss to the Denver Broncos.
– He also did so efficiently without needing a billion pass attempts to get him there. Wilson’s only the second Steelers quarterback to throw for 400-plus yards in under 40 attempts. Roethlisberger did it once, throwing for 417 on 35 attempts against the Cleveland Browns in 2009.
– The Steelers’ 44 points were the most they’ve scored since their 52-21 2018 Thursday night win against the Carolina Panthers.
Their 44 points are the most versus a divisional opponent since 2000 when QB Kordell Stewart led Pittsburgh to a 48-28 win over the Bengals.
– Speaking of points, Wilson led the Steelers to 27 of them in the first half. That’s the most they’ve posted in a game since that aforementioned win over the Panthers.
– As we noted yesterday, Wilson has 10 touchdown passes this season. That’s the most by a Steelers quarterback in a season in the post-Ben Roethlisberger era. And that’s despite Wilson only making his sixth start of the season.
– His 414 yards rank 11th most in single-game Steelers history. He missed tying the top 10 by three yards. Besides Roethlisberger, only Maddox has ever thrown for more yards in a game than Wilson did today for the Steelers. And Maddox had an extra quarter to do it in.
– Even panning out to Wilson’s career, his day was impressive. It’s only the third 400-yard game of his regular-season career and only the second in which he’s also thrown for at least three touchdowns (a 2017 win over the Houston Texans was the other).
