While Russell Wilson was Mike Tomlin’s choice, it doesn’t sound like he was offensive coordinator Arthur Smith’s. Though the team pivoted to Wilson mid-season after Justin Fields led the Steelers to a 4-2 start, a new report sheds light that Wilson and Smith didn’t see eye-to-eye, leading to a strained relationship between coordinator and quarterback.
The Athletic’s Mark Kaboly shared this article on Twitter Tuesday night, painting a less-than-stellar picture.
“Still, despite Wilson and Smith spending countless hours together after the typical workday watching film and publicly joking about it, a team source recently said that Wilson and Smith did not have a very good working relationship but fought through their differences as best they could.”
Kaboly doesn’t get into detail over what those differences were. As he notes, it was common for Wilson and Smith to work late into Friday night, leading their wives to call and wonder where they were. Both are regarded as professional and have long tenures, Smith coordinating and calling offenses for nearly a decade while Wilson is one of the NFL’s oldest quarterbacks with 199 regular season starts.
In November, SI’s Albert Breer reported the two had a series of hard conversations to get Wilson to buy-in, suggesting the two sides weren’t immediately on the same page. Again, he doesn’t detail the potential misalignment.
Pittsburgh was supposed to be a healthier environment for Wilson, who clearly had a tough relationship with Sean Payton. A shotgun marriage when Payton was traded to be the Broncos’ head coach after the blockbuster deal that sent Wilson from Seattle to Denver had occurred a year earlier. Payton wanted a precise pocket passer. Wilson had a run-around style.
Under Smith, the Steelers played more to his strengths of working under center, utilizing play-action, and throwing the home run ball downfield. It led Pittsburgh to briefly have a top-ten scoring offense and be viewed as a contender, though the team quickly came crashing back to Earth and lost their final five games. They failed to scored more than 17 points over that span, something that hadn’t happened to the Steelers since Chuck Noll’s first season in 1969.
National reporting has been mixed. One report indicated Tomlin and Wilson had enough good will to bring him back even though the Steelers would add competition. Other reporting paints pictures of frustration with Wilson while Tomlin spoke positively of Justin Fields during his year-end press conference. Kaboly believes Fields is the early front runner to be retained but notes nothing is set in stone. A year ago, a confident Tomlin proclaimed his starting quarterback was on the roster. Pittsburgh instead swapped out the entire room.
Wilson and Fields are free agents and it’s unlikely both return as the package group they were in 2024. Unless Smith gets a head coaching gig, he will be back as offensive coordinator. If Smith has more sway into who the team’s quarterback of 2025 will be, it doesn’t sound like Wilson.
