Maybe Russell Wilson Really Has Turned back the Clock

You have to go back over six years – September 16^th, 2018, in fact – to find a game where a Steelers quarterback threw for over 400 yards and 3 touchdowns. Ben Roethlisberger did it in a 42-37 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs, a game better known as the, “Oh crap, this Mahomes kid might be really good” affair.

You have to go back even further – October 26^th, 2014, a full decade and some change – to find a game where a Steelers quarterback hit those statistical milestones in a win. Roethlisberger did it that day against the Colts, throwing for 522 yards and 6 touchdowns, a performance that quite literally represents the statistical apex of his career.

I was at that game as a paying customer, a pretty rare experience for me, which made the spectacle of what unfolded that much more surreal. That game represented the Killer B’s-era Steelers at their explosive best, and it was fun as hell to watch.

To say that the Steelers have been in the offensive wilderness since Roethlisberger shredded his right arm against, of all people, Russell Wilson and the Seahawks in Week 2 of the 2019 season would be an understatement.

Consider this: From the moment that injury happened until now, the Steelers had one – one! – game where a quarterback not named Roethlisberger threw for even 300 yards and 2 touchdowns in a game. That was Mason Rudolph in a meaningless Week 17 loss to the Cleveland Browns in the 2020 season.

Rudolph, Devlin Hodges, Kenny Pickett and Mitch Trubisky never had those numbers in a single game, let alone a win. Throwing for 300 yards and 2 touchdowns is not some jaw-dropping feat like it would have been in the 1970s. It happens all the time.

In the 2022 and 2023 seasons, every NFL team save one had a quarterback top 300 and 2. You guessed it, that team was the Steelers.

It wasn’t all Matt Canada’s fault, either. Although, one imagines him watching Sunday’s game and being flabbergasted that a team is allowed to start scoring and keep right on going. As bad as he was, the guys putting his plays into practice might have been worse.

I write all that to hopefully drive home how impressive Wilson was, and how we’ve not seen a Steelers offense capable of this in a very long time. And yes, I understand that they were playing the Bengals, and that putting up massive numbers against Cincinnati is a rite of passage for any team worth its salt.

No one’s thrown for 400 yards on them this year, though. And only the Ravens can match the Steelers’ 520 yards of offense. Yesterday was a dissection by Wilson, a masterclass of distribution and making the right read at the right time. Ten different receivers had a reception, and when Wilson’s hitting guys like MyCole Pruitt down the middle for big gainers, you know he’s got it going.

The prevalent critique of Wilson coming into this season was that he didn’t challenge the middle of the field, that the four true outcomes of a Russ drop back were as follows:

-Successful Moonball

-Unsuccessful Moonball

-Checkdown

-Sack

Guess what? He’s challenging the middle of the field. Yesterday might have been the literal best game of his career in that regard! He peppered the Bengals at all levels, and was particularly proficient throwing intermediate-deep passes. The chart is a thing of beauty, particularly when you consider that the one blemish, that little red spot, wasn’t even close to his fault, and probably should have been a defensive penalty, and not a pick-six.

Wilson and Arthur Smith executed their game plan flawlessly. The Bengals tried to sit in zones early, and Wilson strafed them with short, quick throws to Najee Harris, who then turned said throws into solid gains. When Cincinnati blitzed, Smith dialed up screen passes right into the pressure, and the Steelers continued to take chunks.

I should point out here that the key to the Steelers’ success against Cincinnati’s drop zones was that Wilson didn’t screw around looking for the big play. He saw Harris get open and got him the ball immediately, and let his bruising running back do the rest.

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Whenever the Bengals didn’t hang back, Wilson made them pay, ripping big throws down the seams, and hitting a patented moonball to George Pickens that probably would have set up another touchdown, had Pickens not taken his second unsportsmanlike conduct penalty of the day immediately thereafter.

The play that really drove home for me the kind of zone Wilson was in came midway through the fourth quarter, with the Steelers up 41-31 and trying to run out the clock. They faced a 3^rd-and-9, and were at the very edge of Chris Boswell’s range.

Throw an incomplete pass and the clock stops, and you’re punting the ball back to one of the league’s most explosive offenses. You would be forgiven for thinking that Wilson would look for Pickens or Pat Freiermuth on the play. Instead, he looked for a mismatch and saw one, with Van Jefferson lined up against rookie Josh Newton.

Newton turned the wrong way and Wilson threw a perfect ball to a streaking Jefferson, whose catch and run turned the play into a 43-yard gainer that put the Steelers in field-goal range, forced the Bengals to burn all three of their timeouts, and allowed Pittsburgh to take an additional two-and-a-half minutes off the clock.

Wilson is taking what’s there and trusting guys, even down-the-line guys, to make plays. And they’re making them! Ben Skowronek had a 23-yard catch. Cordarrelle Patterson had 37 receiving yards. It takes a village to pile up over 400 yards through the air, and Wilson was knocking on every door.

It seems worth stepping back at this point and taking time to consider what the Steelers are capable of moving forward. Wilson’s play so far is changing the calculus, at least for me. In the seven games since he took over, Pittsburgh is second in the league in yards per game (389.7) and sixth in points per game (28.6). Yes, it’s worth mentioning that the combined record of their opponents in that stretch is 25-34 (at the time the Steelers played them), but putting up big numbers against bad-to-mediocre overall competition still matters, particularly in light of the team’s years spent in the offensive wilderness.

The Athletic has the Steelers at 98 percent to make the playoffs, and 57 percent to win the AFC North. Most national analysts have concluded that this is a good football team, even a very good one, but that Wilson’s lower game-to-game ceiling compared to Mahomes, Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson puts them a tier down from the AFC’s elite.

Humor me, though: What if this Russell Wilson just keeps showing up, week in and week out? Hell, what if even close to this Russell Wilson keeps showing up? We’ll get a chance to put all of that to the test soon enough. The Steelers get Cleveland at home this week, and then their finishing gauntlet – at Philadelphia, at Baltimore, versus Kansas City (on a short week), versus Cincinnati – begins.

What if the guy is vibing with Smith? What if his offensive line – specifically Broderick Jones – is starting to come together to give him a solid pocket on most every play? What if he’s another example of a quarterback who still has something left in the tank in his mid-thirties? What if he’s still got room to improve this year?

Some of those questions might seem like wishful thinking. Maybe even all of them. But as the weeks pass, and the big performances start to stack up, you should take them, and by extension the Steelers, much more seriously.