As the saying goes, “You play like you practice and you practice how you play.” According to ESPN’s Brooke Pryor, that was exactly true with Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Russell Wilson in 2024.
During a guest appearance on The Shek Show podcast, Pryor told host Dave Dameshek and co-guest Tim Benz that at the end of the 2024 campaign when Wilson wasn’t playing well, he wasn’t practicing well either.
“Toward the end of the season, the practices at Acrisure Stadium before the playoff game, I just remember watching Russ and thinking, ‘This is not good.’ He did not look good,” Pryor said. “He was making mistakes. He was throwing picks. I felt like the defense was gonna put up a bigger fight based on what I was seeing in practice.
“I felt like Russ kind of went over a cliff at some point in the season in that five-game losing streak.”
Pryor added that no matter how much positivity Wilson tried to express, his play had obviously changed.
Wilson won six of his first seven starts with the Steelers. But he finished the season 6-6, including the playoffs, as a starter.
Russell Wilson’s Decline at the End of the 2024 NFL Season
Several factors contributed to the Steelers five-game losing streak to end the season. They played three games in the span of 11 days, two of which were against the eventual Super Bowl teams.
Sandwiched in between was a road matchup with the Baltimore Ravens.
But the Steelers can’t completely use the schedule as an excuse. Offensively, they didn’t play much better at home after 10 days off against the Cincinnati Bengals.
Wilson was a major reason for the decreased offensive production. In his first seven starts, he averaged 8.4 yards per pass with 12 touchdowns and only three interceptions.
But even including the postseason, where Wilson padded his statistics in a lopsided second half, he averaged 6.4 yards per attempt during the five-game losing streak.
His completion percentage dropped too.
Wide receiver George Pickens missed three games because of a hamstring injury. The Steelers failed to rush for 80 yards in three of their final five contests too.
Meanwhile, the defense didn’t create as many turnovers, which placed the offense in ideal scoring situations, at the end of the season as it did during the first three months.
If those things didn’t happen, though, it still seems quite possible the Steelers offense would have struggled to end 2024. Even in control environments such as practice, Wilson didn’t perform well during that stretch, according to Pryor.
Will the Steelers Re-Sign Wilson?
Pryor’s update isn’t likely to have much impact on Wilson’s future. But it could change the narrative around the signal caller.
Pundits were already questioning whether the Steelers should pursue re-signing Wilson. After Pryor’s assessment of his practices late in the year, Steelers Nation is even more likely to want the team to pursue other quarterback options.
Team owner Art Rooney II told the media on January 27 that he’d prefer either Wilson or Justin Fields return. Both are unrestricted free agents this offseason.
Head coach Mike Tomlin complimented Fields during his end-of-the-season press conference on January 14. Tomlin also stressed that age will be a factor and emphasized the advantages mobile quarterbacks give NFL teams.
That points to the Steelers moving on from Wilson to sign Fields, who is 10 years younger. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Gerry Dulac has reported multiple times this offseason that’s what the team will do.
Should he leave in free agency, pundits have linked Wilson with former head coach Pete Carroll and the Las Vegas Raiders.
But Pryor has seemingly put any NFL team interested in Wilson on notice. If he truly “fell off a cliff” even in practice, then his next NFL situation may have to be perfect for him to experience success.
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