With Justin Fields set to start his second straight game for the Steelers, he’ll have a little additional depth at wide receiver with Ben Skowronek available.
The Steelers announced this morning that they have elevated Skowronek from the practice squad to the active roster for Sunday’s game against the Broncos.
Skowronek will revert back to the practice squad after the game, but given that he was also elevated for Week One, it’s likely that the Steelers will soon put him on the 53-player roster on a permanent basis.
Skowronek was a seventh-round draft pick of the Rams in 2021 who spent the last three years in Los Angeles. He was traded to the Texans in May but didn’t make Houston’s roster and then signed to the Steelers’ practice squad.
Last week Skowronek did not play on offense but got 11 snaps on special teams.
Russell Wilson is officially returning to Denver.
The Steelers quarterback, questionable for Sunday’s game against the Broncos with a calf injury, has made the trip to Colorado.
Often, players listed as questionable won’t make the trip for a road game, with the team instead downgrading the player to out.
Wilson also flew to Atlanta last week. He ultimately was the third quarterback on game day. Some who saw him in uniform asked a fairly obvious question. If he’s healthy enough to dress, how is he not healthy enough to play?
The Steelers might just be placating him, to an extent. Allowing him to go through the motions of preparing for a game. Allowing him to wear the uniform. Not allowing him to play.
Wilson surely thinks he can play through his aggravated calf strain. For the Steelers, the immediate question is whether Wilson at less than 100 percent provides a better option for victory than a healthy Justin Fields. The longer-term concern comes from the possibility that, while playing, Wilson will aggravate the calf again.
Through it all, the Steelers get a chance to develop and evaluate Fields. He’s clearly the better long-term option, since he’s significantly younger than Wilson. And if Fields struggles in the short term, he wouldn’t be benched, per se. Wilson would be declared to be healthy, and Fields would return to his official QB2 status.
If the Steelers win with Fields, that’s when it could get awkward. Wilson didn’t take the veteran minimum of $1.2 million from the Steelers to stand on the sidelines. At some point, he’ll get frustrated. At some point, someone close to Wilson might start leaking fuel for Sunday Splash! reports. Possibly with the goal of getting Wilson traded to a place where he’d have a chance to play.
That point could come sooner than later, especially as he goes back to see the Broncos. Especially when that team will pay him nearly $37 million this year, simply to go away.
When the Steelers visit the Broncos on Sunday, Pittsburgh coach Mike Tomlin will get another crack at a rookie quarterback. It’ll be Tomlin’s 31st career game against a first-year signal-caller.
The victim this time around will be Bo Nix, the 12th overall pick in the 2024 draft.
Tomlin’s record is 24-6 against rookie QBs. Earlier this week, Myles Simmons and I tried to guess the six that beat Tomlin based only on the years of the losses.
As the attached clip indicates, our effort was not too good.
If you’d like to try it for yourself, here are the years when Tomlin lost to a rookie quarterback: 2023 twice, 2016 twice, 2012, and 2007.
Here’s a paragraph of filler, so that your eyes won’t stray to the answers.
And here’s another.
It happened twice last year. The Steelers were overpowered in Week 4 by C.J. Stroud and the Texans, 30-6. Then, they lost to the Browns and Dorian Thompson-Robinson(!) in Week 11, 13-10.
In 2016, there were two more losses to rookie quarterbacks. Carson Wentz and the Eagles dismantled the Steelers in Week 3, 34-3. In Week 10, Dak Prescott and the Cowboys beat the Steelers in Pittsburgh, 35-30.
Four years earlier, it was Brandon Weeden(!) and the Browns, Week 12 at Cleveland, 20-14. Five years before that, it was Troy Smith(!) and the Ravens in Week 17, 27-21.
Half of the losses came against quarterbacks for the new Browns/old Browns. And the quarterbacks in question didn’t exactly go on to have Hall of Fame careers. (DTR still could. Theoretically.)
Tomorrow, Nix will get a chance to drop Tomlin’s success rate against rookie quarterbacks below 80 percent. Based on how the Pittsburgh defense played in Atlanta, good luck with that.
The Steelers list Russell Wilson as questionable for Sunday’s game against the Broncos, but coach Mike Tomlin announced that the team is preparing for Justin Fields to start.
Gerry Dulac of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports the Steelers also plan to have Fields start the home opener Sept. 22 against the Chargers before reassessing Wilson’s injured calf.
Wilson originally injured his calf pushing a sled during the team’s conditioning test the day before training camp. He thought the injury was fully healed after he missed 10 practices while rehabbing during training camp.
Wilson played six series in the preseason and was on track to start the season opener until Sept. 5 when he felt tightness in the calf during practice. The Steelers will be cautious in his return considering it’s a recurrence of a soft-tissue injury for a player who turns 36 in November.
Tomlin would not answer whether Wilson will be the starter when healthy.
Fields still is listed as the backup to Wilson on the team’s depth chart.
“I’m not going to soothe you with hypothetical scenarios,” Tomlin said, via Brooke Pryor of ESPN. “It is my general practice to not. . . . So why start today? Because it’s the quarterback position or because it’s a national story? I am unmoved by some of those narratives, to be quite honest with you.
“When people are somewhat limited, I say we’ll push through our work week. We’ll let their participation be our guide in terms of whether we include ‘em and then the quality of that participation. This scenario is no different for me. . . . Our energies and attention are on those that are available and are scheduled to play. They’re deserving of that. When those that are not are healthy, we’ll ponder it at that time.”
It sounds like Justin Fields will make his second consecutive start for Pittsburgh to open the season.
Head coach Mike Tomlin told reporters on Friday that Russell Wilson will be listed as questionable for Sunday’s matchup against the Broncos. But as has been the case all week, the team is still preparing to start Fields.
"[O]bviously if [Wilson’s] availability is questionable, then starting is less so,” Tomlin said, via Chris Adamski of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. But we’ve been in that mindset all week, man. Like I’ve said, we’ve been focused on getting Justin ready to play and we’ll continue in that mindset as we push forward toward game time.”
With that, multiple reporters on the Steelers beat noted that Fields is likely to start with Kyle Allen as the team’s backup and Wilson as the emergency No. 3, much like last week.
Fields finished the season opener 17-of-23 passing for 156 yards with 57 yards rushing on 14 attempts.
Pittsburgh’s full injury report with game statuses will be released later on Friday.
It doesn’t take an advanced degree in football to notice that the Steelers’ game plan for quarterback Justin Fields against the Falcons in Week One was focused on throwing the ball anywhere but the middle of the field.
None of Fields’ 23 passes were over the middle, which offensive coordinator and former Falcons head coach Arthur Smith chalked up to knowing how good Falcons safety Jessie Bates is at stopping offenses in that area. On Thursday, Fields was asked if that is going to change against a Broncos team that doesn’t have the same kind of talent in that area.
“We knew how good their safeties were last week, but I guess that was just part of the game plan,” Fields said. “But, yeah, I guess we’ll see if we throw the ball over the middle this game. I’m not really trying to give away a game plan like that. Yeah, we’ll see.”
The Steelers were risk-averse against the Falcons and that approach paid off with an 18-10 win. Fields’s preparation for that start was limited since Russell Wilson was injured during this week, but he’s had more time running the first team heading into this weekend and there will be plenty of people watching to see if that means a change in how the Steelers approach things as an offense.
The Steelers put Russell Wilson through a “battery of movements” this week to assess where he is in his return from a calf injury he aggravated last Thursday. But while the quarterback said he’s getting “closer and closer” he does not sound confident about playing this week.
It’s no surprise as Wilson has not had a full practice since last Wednesday, the day before he aggravated his calf injury.
“I’m just trying to be smart,” Wilson said Thursday, via Brooke Pryor of ESPN. “Got to do a lot of work today on the field and everything else, throwing and all that, so just trying to be smart.”
Justin Fields started the season-opening win over the Falcons and appears poised to start again this week against the Broncos, Wilson’s former team.
Though Wilson wants and hopes to play, he said he is going to deliberate in his return and not come back until he’s 100 percent. The team’s medical staff will help him determine when the right time is to practice and play.
“Anybody who knows me, I always want to go and play and that’s how I get my mind ready, my body ready for that, to play,” Wilson said. “At the end of the day, I believe you got to play dinged-up sometimes. I think Coach, he’s also and the trainers just want to be smart, too, as well just because it’s early in the season. I think that if this is the last game of the season kind of thing or one of those kinds of games, we’re definitely going.
“I think right now I want to go, but we also, too, want to be smart, too, as well.”
Wilson originally injured his calf pushing a sled during the team’s conditioning test the day before training camp. He missed 10 practices while rehabbing.
Wilson played six series in the preseason, with the injury appearing to be behind him. But Wilson experienced tightness in last Thursday’s practice. He warmed up before the Falcons game, but it wasn’t good enough to play.
“I think when it happened in training camp, I was disappointed,” Wilson said. “I knew it was pretty strong, pretty good calf injury, and so that was disappointing. But we kept our head up, we worked our butts off every day in the training room. . . . We spent a lot of time just to kind of get ready, and so when I tweaked it again it was like, ‘OK, yeah, we got to be smart here and not crazy push it too bad. So, I think that was the frustrating part. Obviously, I want to be to be out there in between the white lines with our teammates.”
The Broncos did not win quarterback Bo Nix’s debut, as Seattle defeated Denver 26-20 in Week 1.
Nix, this year’s No. 12 overall pick, finished the game 26-of-42 for 138 yards with a pair of interceptions. He also rushed for 35 yards with a touchdown.
Receiver Courtland Sutton said in his Wednesday news conference that he feels positive about the way Nix can move forward and grow.
“I think that Bo is a student of the game,” Sutton said. “I’m sure that he has his things that he took from the game that he wants back and things that he thought he did well that he wants to continue to progress on. I think he did a lot of things really well. I told him after the game that he composed himself and handled the flow of the game well.
“The outcome wasn’t what we wanted, but in terms of the way he came in and handled his very first game in a hostile environment, there’s a lot of hope and promise moving forward.”
Sutton added that he wanted to make sure Nix didn’t get down after one loss because it’s a long season.
“Yes it’s frustrating to lose, but the same way people say you have 24 hours to celebrate a win, you have 24 hours to get over a loss,” Sutton said. “You have to go in and watch the film, learn from your mistakes and put it to bed. Then go into the next week and get ready to go because [if] you sit there and dwell on it, then some things that may have beaten you the week prior are going to come back and rear their heads in the next week. That’s what you don’t want.
“Especially with a young team and a lot of young guys, you don’t want them to get discouraged on themselves and think that the world is crashing because they may have had one mistake, or they didn’t have the game they wanted to have. Let them know that there are more opportunities ahead of us, and we need all of us to be 100 percent mentally, physically, and emotionally so that we can go out there and be successful week-in and week-out.”
Sutton caught four passes for 38 yards in Week 1.
Broncos rookie running back Audric Estime is going to miss at least the next four games.
The team placed Estime on injured reserve Wednesday. Estime injured his ankle in the season-opening loss to the Seahawks. The fifth-round pick had two carries for 14 yards in his regular season debut.
Estime also missed time during the offseason after having surgery on his knee. Javonte Williams, Jaleel McLaughlin, and Blake Watson are the remaining backs on the depth charts.
The Broncos filled Estime’s roster spot by signing fullback Michael Burton to the active roster from the practice squad. Burton was elevated to play in the opener and saw action on 36 snaps.
Justin Fields is in line to start another game at quarterback for Pittsburgh to start the 2024 season.
Head coach Mike Tomlin told reporters in his Tuesday press conference that Russell Wilson is feeling better, but is still dealing with the effects of his calf injury. So, Fields is set to take the QB1 reps to begin the practice week.
“I just visited with [Wilson],” Tomlin said. “He feels better today than he did over the weekend. And so what that means, I don’t know as we sit here today. I know that we’re going to take the same approach we take with a lot of people in terms of injury. We’ll first start with his participation and his level of participation, his quality of participation.
“Over the course of the week, we’ll be analyzing whether he’s capable of protecting himself, whether he’s capable of being productive. When we get to those points, that’s when we’ll ponder his inclusion or not — and when that happens will probably be a component of that equation.”
Tomlin continued by noting what that means for Fields.
"[A]s I sit here today, we’re preparing as if Justin is going to be our quarterback,” Tomlin said. “I think that’s the appropriate way to do it. Speculation is a waste of time. Russell’s hurt, he’s not available to us. And so as you guys know, as a general practice, I focus my energy on those that are available and their readiness. Just saw Justin, he just finished a good workout here today and excited about maybe going through a complete week with him in terms of the preparation process. But, again, we’ll take it day by day.
“Russ is not scheduled to work in totality tomorrow. To what degree, I do not know. And then we’ll play it by ear from there based on the results and the things that we see, in terms of whether or not we consider him and to what degree we consider him.”
Fields completed 17-of-23 passes for 156 yards and rushed for 57 yards on 14 carries in his Steelers debut, an 18-10 victory over the Falcons.
The Steelers will be on the road again in Week 2 toffee the Broncos in Denver.
