This is the first in a series looking at the Steelers by position heading into their 2024 training camp at Saint Vincent College July 24. Today: The quarterbacks
Players (4): Russell Wilson, Justin Fields, Kyle Allen, John Rhys Plumlee
Never look a gift horse in the mouth.
It's an age-old proverb, but it remains true to this day.
I's appropriate when looking at the Steelers' quarterback position for 2024.
Gone are Kenny Pickett, Mitch Trubisky and Mason Rudolph. In are Russel Wilson, Justin Fields, Kyle Allen and John Rhys Plumlee.
And the Steelers did so at minimal cost in both salary cap space and draft capital.
Even Steelers GM Omar Khan was surprised the Steelers were able to acquire both Wilson and Fields, in particular, this offseason.
"I'm excited about both those players. They're both really good quarterbacks, and I am surprised," Khan said at the league meeting in March. "You know, if you would have told me a month ago when we spoke in Ind(ianapolis) that we'd be sitting here a month later and that Russell Wilson and Justin Fields would be our quarterbacks. I'd say, I'd be a little bit surprised. Yeah."
Wilson, a nine-time Pro Bowl quarterback, spent the past two seasons in Denver after a decade in Seattle, where he led the team to one Super Bowl win and a second berth.
He enters training camp in "pole position," as head coach Mike Tomlin has put it multiple times, to be the team's starting quarterback in 2024.
Wilson had a sub-par season in Denver in 2022, but bounced back in 2023 to complete 66.4 percent of his passes and throw for 3,070 yards with 26 touchdown passes and eight interceptions in 15 games.
But he wasn't a fit for new head coach Sean Payton's offense, and Payton benched him late in the season in a cost-cutting move, leading to his release.
Wilson's 26 touchdown passes in 2023 were exactly twice as many as the 13 the Steelers' quarterbacks threw for last season, while his playing style should mesh well with the ball-control, play-action passing game new offensive coordinator Arthur Smith looks to establish.
He immediately stepped into a leadership role with the Steelers, taking ownership of the offense and working with the team's receivers.
Fields gives the Steelers perhaps the best No. 2 option in the NFL – or at least the most explosive No. 2 option.
A former first-round pick of the Bears, he became expendable in Chicago because the Bears held the No. 1-overall pick in this year's draft and chose to turn to Caleb Williams at quarterback, thus resetting the clock on having to pay a young signal caller big money.
In three seasons as Chicago's starter, Fields saw his completion percentage increase every season from 58.9 as a rookie to 61.4 percent last season. He threw for just over 2,500 yards with 16 touchdown passes and nine interceptions last season in 13 games, all of them starts.
After rushing for more than 1,100 yards in 2022, he ran less in 2023 but still had 657 yards on the ground. He remains one of the league's most dangerous players, regardless of position, with the ball in his hands.
Still just 25, the book on Fields has yet to be written.
Allen has 19 starts in his six-year career and has thrown for over 4,000 yards with 26 touchdown passes against 21 interceptions.
Plumlee was signed as an undrafted rookie after spending time at both Ole Miss and Central Florida.
A scrambler, Plumlee has some talent and though he lacks ideal size at 6-foot, 200 pounds, his skill sets match up well with those of Wilson and Fields, both very capable runners in their own right.
