For these throughout the Pittsburgh Steelers’ group — nicely, largely — there’s fairly a little bit of perception in veteran quarterback Russell Wilson, who enters the season because the beginning quarterback for the Black and Gold.
He’s a been there, executed that man who brings nice management, accuracy, and deep ball capacity to the quarterback place. However for a few of his nice traits, there are some damaging ones that individuals can’t appear to be drawn away from, a minimum of on the skin trying in.
That’s very true within the nationwide media, the place Wilson has been ripped to shreds time and time once more for reasonably foolish causes.
There’s actual pleasure there for a Wilson-led offense in Pittsburgh, a minimum of contained in the locker room. However on the skin within the nationwide media, notably from The Ringer’s Steven Ruiz, there is no such thing as a perception in Wilson.
In his piece rating the highest 32 beginning quarterbacks Wednesday, Russell Wilson landed at No. 27 general. Ruiz questioned fairly a bit about Wilson and believes he doesn’t do a lot of something nicely at this level in his profession.
“Wilson has all the time been a resilient quarterback, so it’s not a shock that he’s landed on his toes and gained the Steelers beginning job. There aren’t plenty of issues Wilson does nicely at this level in his profession—he nonetheless isn’t nice within the pocket, and now he’s rather a lot slower exterior of it, too—however he doesn’t flip the ball over, which can endear him to Mike Tomlin,” Ruiz writes relating to Wilson for The Ringer. “The truth that Wilson nonetheless has an honest arm and is able to throwing moon balls as much as George Pickens makes him a extra viable possibility than what Pittsburgh has had at quarterback these previous few years.
“However that may be a tremendously low bar, and this completely washed model of Wilson barely clears it.”
A completely washed model of Wilson is reasonably tough in relation to describing him. That doesn’t look like the case — in any respect.
Russell Wilson threw for 3,070 yards and 26 touchdowns final season with simply eight interceptions. He had a QBR of fifty.7 final season, which was forward of Kyler Murray however only a few decimal factors behind Joe Burrow. He was additionally eighth within the NFL within the conventional QB ranking system, too, at 98.0, forward of men like Jared Goff, Jordan Love and Baker Mayfield, all of whom had been reasonably good final season.
Sure, Russell Wilson takes plenty of sacks and holds onto the soccer for a lot too lengthy. That’s an actual drawback. However he nonetheless has an amazing arm, can hit the deep ball constantly, and usually avoids errors, which is precisely what the Steelers want below Arthur Smith.
He’ll must eliminate the soccer a bit faster and make the appropriate selections within the brief, fast passing recreation. If he can do this, he’ll be simply effective and can lead the Steelers to success this season. If not, perhaps Ruiz may be proper with the completely washed line he dropped.
Right here’s betting that gained’t be the case with Russell Wilson in 2024, although.