Insider Details Possible Steelers QB Plan Before Season
What could the Pittsburgh Steelers do for their plan at quarterback? Albert Breer has a potential plan for what the team could do.
Throughout the entire spring, all coaches and players have detailed that the Pittsburgh Steelers will have a competition between Justin Fields and Russell Wilson to figure out who will be the team’s starting quarterback against the Atlanta Falcons in Week 1. Right now, Wilson occupies ‘pole position’ and it seems that he is approaching the position with a reintroduced vigor.
Albert Breer of Sports Illustrated believes this will force the Steelers to not name a starter until the very end so that they can get the most out of Wilson during the competition, as it has seemed to light a fire under the former Pro Bowl quarterback.
“Through the spring, neither Wilson nor Justin Fields lit the world on fire in Pittsburgh,” Breer wrote. “But what the staff did see was a motivated Wilson, who benefitted from the competition Fields was giving him. So I’ll be interested to see how long Pittsburgh waits to shut down any notion of one,” Breer said. “Yes, it can help to fully declare your starter,” Breer added. “But there is something to the benefit the Steelers are getting from having two guys in contract years battling to get on, and stay on, the field. And if the benefit to this point has been Wilson operating like he’s got horse blinders on, maybe it wouldn’t make a ton of sense to go away from that.”
That is a possible motive for the Steelers. While it seems likely that there will be a chance for Fields to push Wilson, Wilson is pushing to earn that job, and outplayed Wilson in the spring. So, it would seem with him receiving most of the first team reps along with his superior performance that he is the favorite to earn the job.
Wilson stands as a prolific deep ball thrower and he scored out as one of the NFL’s better red zone passers in 2023, too. There are positives for the Steelers to work with even though both Wilson and Fields carry their own limitations. The competition should be fierce until a starter is announced.
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