NFL Free Agency: The Steelers land Russell Wilson.
Russell Wilson and the Steelers decided to not wait until it was time to legally tamper in order to finalize their future together.
Of course, Russ had free reign to sign with whoever, whenever, after the Broncos did him the “favor” of releasing him one week ago – an agreement that will result in them STILL having to pay the 35-year-old QB $37.8 million next season. This allows Pittsburgh to pay just $1.2 million to the artist known as DangeRuss.
While nobody should expect the Steelers to get a prime version of Mr. Unlimited, he proved to still have a penchant for creating some off-script magic in 2023, and the man deserves credit for posting the NFL’s third-best mark in completion percentage over expected (+4.9%) last season.
Still, it’s tough to be overly enthralled with Wilson’s accuracy considering he hasn’t exactly made a habit of attacking all three levels of the field in recent years. Per Warren Sharp:
- Wilson threw 27% of his passes behind the line of scrimmage in 2023 – the HIGHEST mark among 509 QBs since 2005.
- Russ also threw just 26% of his passes between five and 15 yards downfield – the LOWEST mark during that period.
Give the veteran signal-caller a lot of credit for tossing 26 TDs in just 15 games last season; he was a helluva lot better with Sean Payton than Nathaniel Hackett. That said: The performance was still quite a bit removed from the guy we used to see slinging the football for the Seahawks:
EPA per dropback over the last 10 years
- 2014: +0.182 (No. 6 among all QBs with 300-plus dropbacks)
- 2015: +0.267 (No. 3)
- 2016: +0.093 (No. 15)
- 2017: +0.081 (No. 13)
- 2018: +0.202 (No. 6)
- 2019: +0.150 (No. 11)
- 2020: +0.165 (No. 14)
- 2021: +0.075 (No. 19)
- 2022: -0.004 (No. 25)
- 2023: +0.045 (No. 18)
Still, working inside of Arthur Smith’s play-action-heavy scheme while throwing to the likes of George Pickens, Diontae Johnson (if he’s not traded) and Pat Freiermuth might be what’s best for Wilson at this point of his career. It’s been easy to say a lot of mean things about Smith in fantasy land for the better part of the last 36 months; just realize the Steelers’ new offensive coordinator does deserve credit for getting the very best out of Ryan Tannehill during their 2019 and 2020 seasons together.
Overall, the marriage is relatively good news for Steelers faithful who have been forced to watch the team unironically trust Kenny Pickett, Mitch Trubisky and/or Mason Rudolph in the post-Big Ben era. The bar wasn’t very high, but a (hopefully) steady veteran QB combined with the ever-great T.J. Watt-led defense will help matters for Mike Tomlin’s ongoing effort to never post a losing season.
Reminder: Russ and the Broncos put together a five-game winning streak during the middle of 2023 that featured them taking down the Packers, Chiefs, Bills, Vikings and Browns in consecutive weeks.
Glass-half-empty folks will immediately point out that the Broncos scored 24 or fewer points in all but one of those wins; either way, Russ is at a minimum still capable of playing QB at an average to above-average level – something that has been largely missing in Pittsburgh over the past few years.
Good enough real-life news for the Steelers aside, it’s tough to get overly excited about this match in fantasy land. Smith’s offenses have regularly run the ball as much as possible when he’s been in charge:
Smith’s pass-play rate over the past five years:
- 2019 (Titans): 56.8% (No. 29)
- 2020 (Titans): 51.7% (No. 30)
- 2021 (Falcons): 62.6% (No. 12)
- 2022 (Falcons): 48.5% (No. 32)
- 2023 (Falcons): 55.3% (No. 30)
Maybe Smith decides to embrace Russ like he did Matt Ryan in 2021, but that seems unlikely considering the continuity factors at hand AND the fact that the Steelers themselves rank 27th in pass play rate (56.6%) in two seasons since Ben Roethlisberger retired.
Russ represents a solid bump for the pass-catchers at hand even if his presence under center doesn’t really move the needle all that much for this Steelers offense. Rudolph was low-key playing some pretty damn efficient football down the stretch of 2023; it seems like wishful thinking to expect the 2024 Steelers to flirt with the game’s top-10 scoring offenses both due to their offensive philosophy and aging QB.
The reigning QB13 in fantasy points per game is certainly a solid second-QB value at his current QB30 ADP over at Underdog Fantasy, but it’ll be tough to warrant going out of your way to secure his services should that price tag creep up into the low-end QB2 range alongside fellow veterans in more pass-happy offenses like Jared Goff (QB17), Matthew Stafford (QB19) and Kirk Cousins (QB20).
Wilson’s average of 22.7 rushing yards per game last year was his highest mark since 2020 (32.1); he’ll need to continue to tap into his previously sky-high rushing upside to get Father Time to f*ck off in fantasy land ahead of 2024.
Final thought: Kudos to Russ for picking “Renegade” as his background song for his introduction post. That song absolutely slaps.
You can start drafting Wilson TODAY on Underdog Fantasy and get a 100% deposit match of up to $100 with code LIFE below:
