Russell Wilson’s first outing with the Pittsburgh Steelers wasn’t what anybody wanted it to be. He didn’t look terrible or turn the ball over, but the offense still looked stagnant. The starting offense couldn’t move the ball, let alone score. That wasn’t all Wilson’s fault though. Arthur Smith said that the team didn’t totally open the playbook for Wilson due to the injury he suffered in training camp, but Mike Tomlin seems to believe the scheme should be more open this week.
“Based on what I’ve seen out here this week, I don’t think there are gonna be any restrictions schematically,” Tomlin said Thursday during a press conference via the team’s YouTube page,
The key word there is schematically. Tomlin isn’t saying that the team is going to let Wilson off the chain and allow him to go full force against the Detroit Lions. He’s saying that the offense will likely have more options available for Wilson this week, and he did leave himself an out by saying he doesn’t “think” there are going to be any restrictions. That still leaves the door open for the Steelers to limit Wilson if they aren’t comfortable with opening up the offense due to his health.
If they don’t restrict the scheme for Wilson, that means that the starting offense this week will probably look more like how the Steelers want to operate in the regular season. Wilson’s calf injury kept him out of action early in training camp as a precaution. It was Tomlin’s call to take Wilson’s injury slow, and now it seems he’s more comfortable with where he is now.
Wilson was ready to totally forego any caution in training camp, so it’s clear he’s been itching to compete. It makes sense that he would want to have a more complete version of the offense to work with this week. Even though he took a lot of punishment in the previous game, he walked away healthy. That had to help coaches feel more ready to open the playbook more for Wilson.
While the starters are going to play against the Lions, Tomlin seemed to imply that they wouldn’t be on the field for very long. Therefore, it’s likely that Wilson will only have a few chances to work with full command of the offense. That should allow him to get a better feel for the scheme in a game while also still protecting his health. Hopefully, that change leads to the starting offense finally scoring some points.
