Field Gulls
And believe it or not, there’s another reported conflict between Wilson and a coach over how to run the offense.
Maybe scratch out what I said a month ago about the Seattle Seahawks playing Russell Wilson’s Pittsburgh Steelers next season. They’ll definitely be playing the Steelers, but Russ at quarterback is a different story.
A pair of insiders have reported that the Steelers are not expected to re-sign Wilson in free agency. There’s local Steelers reporter Dejan Kovacevic with a more scathing way of saying Wilson’s days in Pittsburgh are over:
I’ll keep this short and very much to the point: Russell Wilson’s not wanted by the Steelers.
Like, at all.
I had multiple conversations Thursday with people inside the team, all on my long drive up here to Manhattan to cover hockey, and the universal sentiment among them regarding the player who quarterbacked the offense to a five-loss collapse to close the season was this: Don’t try here what you tried in Denver upon that ugly exit from the Broncos after a public spat with Sean Payton, which was to blame others for your shortcomings.
Also this: There’s the door.
We’ll circle back on this in a second.
Then there’s national NFL insider Jay Glazer indicating that Wilson will be playing elsewhere.
The Steelers indicated that they would like to re-sign one of Wilson or Justin Fields but not both. It’d be unsurprising if they opted with the younger option with much fresher legs than Wilson, who will be 37 in November.
But let’s get back to Dejan’s report because there is a backstory here. Longtime Steelers reporter, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Gerry Dulac, wrote earlier in the week that Steelers offensive coordinator Arthur Smith and Wilson clashed over the offensive philosophy. How bad did it get? Apparently after a 500+ yard performance and over 400 yards from Wilson in a 44-38 win against the Cincinnati Bengals, Wilson lost the freedom to audible out of Smith’s calls.
Multiple sources have told the Post-Gazette the offense lacked imagination and that the audibles and route adjustments Wilson was making at the line of scrimmage were creating a conflict with offensive coordinator Arthur Smith.
[...]
According to several sources, Smith did not want Wilson changing plays at the line of scrimmage, like he did in Cincinnati, and deviating from the game plan.
Wilson’s desire to attack with the pass and throw down the field clashed with Smith’s run-first mentality, causing philosophical friction between the two.
Pittsburgh failed to score more than 17 points in its final five games, something not seen in Steelers history since Chuck Noll’s rookie season, which ended in a 1-13 record. Wilson’s numbers were hardly catastrophic but the offense ceased to score or really do much of anything after the win over the Bengals.
Now let’s get back to Kovacecic’s report, which indicates that this is a story planted by Wilson’s team:
But I’m told...
