Both Adam Thielen and Marquez Valdes-Scantling were active for Sunday’s game against the Baltimore Ravens, which surprisingly came at the expense of second-year WR Roman Wilson. Reflecting back to training camp and the preseason, he was on track to take a big step forward to become a big part of the offense, but that hasn’t happened. And now any hope of a late blossom seems unlikely.
So what happened? Steelers beat writer Mark Kaboly discussed Wilson’s healthy scratch Monday on 93.7 The Fan’s Morning Show.
“At the beginning of the year, they loved him,” Kaboly said. “I mean, I’m talking about Week 1, ‘This is the guy.’ What they felt about him at the beginning of the season was like, ‘This guy’s gonna be a player.’ I don’t know if that’s changed now or not.”
Kaboly reported during the preseason that Wilson was drawing more rave reviews from inside the building than any player he could remember covering as a beat writer.
It seems obvious that something has changed, but the timing is peculiar for a number of reasons. For one, Wilson actually looked pretty good running his deep routes a week ago against the Buffalo Bills. He stacked his corner and got behind the defense on multiple occasions. Aaron Rodgers either didn’t have time to get the ball to him or missed entirely when he tried.
Rodgers has said multiple times throughout the season that he has high expectations for Wilson, a 2024 third-round pick, as he does the rest of his receivers. Is it possible things haven’t gone well behind the scenes in practice or during film sessions? This is entirely speculation, but Rodgers also appeared to take a veiled shot a week ago about players learning hand signals. Could Roman Wilson be struggling in the classroom setting?
“It almost looked like, to me, that they were trying to send him a message,” Kaboly said.
I tend to agree, simply for the fact of who else was active over Wilson. I understand wanting to ramp up Valdes-Scantling and Thielen. But how do we explain Scotty Miller getting a helmet over him? Not only was Wilson a healthy scratch, but he was a rung below the guy who only played four total snaps Sunday, including just one on special teams.
Rodgers went out of his way after the game to praise both newcomer veterans and their professionalism throughout the practice week.
“I’m not a big believer in coincidences, so I gotta think that, just Marquez and Adam out there made the difference from a professionalism standpoint,” Rodgers said via the Steelers’ YouTube. “Not saying those other guys don’t have professionalism, I love Cal and Roman, and all of our other guys, but I just think there was an extra level of focus this week.”
It sounds like Wilson may have known that he was headed toward a healthy scratch.
“Something’s weird. Somebody asked him to comment during the week and [the reporter] says ‘What about receiver?’ And he goes ‘Ask me next week,’” Kaboly said. “Maybe he was already told he wasn’t gonna play this week for some sort of matchup reason.”
All of the circumstances point to something going on behind the scenes that led to his first healthy scratch of the year. Mike Tomlin already said he expects more out of Thielen and Valdes-Scantling moving forward, so Wilson may continue having a hard time getting a helmet.
Calvin Austin III had a similarly quiet second year after missing his entire first year with an injury. It wasn’t until Year 3 that he started to carve out a real role. We can only hope that Roman Wilson can do the same next season, or the third-round price tag on him will not reflect favorably on the Steelers.
