If there is something to be said about Russell Wilson and the Pittsburgh Steelers, it has been said already. We are still more than a month out from free agency, yet we have run through every possibility. There seemed to be a recent trend among national writers pushing Wilson away from the team. Local writers pushed back on that narrative, but so, too, did Adam Schefter, the big fish in the big pond.
One thing, I think, is clear, and that is a point Ray Fittipaldo of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette made over the weekend. The fate of Russell Wilson with the Pittsburgh Steelers lies in the hands of one man: Mike Tomlin. You can talk all you want about how much autonomy Arthur Smith may or may not have over the offense, but you know who controls the roster.
“Mike [Tomlin]’s the head coach. He’s got say over a lot of stuff in that building. If Mike wants Russell Wilson back, Russell Wilson’s gonna be back”, Fittipaldo said on 93.7 The Fan over the weekend, digging into how the Steelers do business.
All of this comes amid reports that Wilson and Smith butted heads late in the season. As one might expect, that gradually shifted to Tomlin, whose presence looms over everything Steelers. But the thing is, neither Wilson nor Smith are children. They know how to work together if they need to—they already did.
“Even after all these stories have been written, it was still a professional relationship”, Fittipaldo said of Wilson and Smith, with Tomlin hovering over it. “They might have butted heads, but I can’t sit here and tell you there’s hate on both sides. If Arthur Smith was told it’s gonna be Russell Wilson, he would do everything he could to try to make that work. Because his name is on that offense”.
I think it should be worth noting that, to date, nobody has corroborated the nature of the report that kicked everything off. There was a more general notice that preceded it, but at no point has anybody else ever said that they also heard Russell Wilson lost certain permissions. Whether that came from Arthur Smith or Mike Tomlin. The best we have gotten, quite frankly, has been some variety of, “Yeah, I could believe it”.
As to the original point, of course, Mike Tomlin was behind signing Russell Wilson. He was behind inserting him into the lineup while most on the outside thought the Steelers should stick with Justin Fields. And he refuted any notion late in the season that it might be worth considering turning to Fields.
It’s reasonable to assume that Mike Tomlin remains a fan of Russell Wilson. And as long as that is true, he has a chance of staying with the Steelers. Other things can be worked around.
