Quarterback Russell Wilson will make his Steelers preseason debut against the Bills on Saturday night, coach Mike Tomlin said.
Tomlin, who spoke following the Bills-Steelers joint practice Thursday, said Wilson will “be a participant” in the team’s second preseason game as long as he doesn’t experience any setbacks to the calf injury he suffered on the eve of the team’s first training camp practice.
Wilson, who split first-team reps with Justin Fields during team periods of the joint practice, said Wednesday he wasn’t concerned about aggravating his calf injury if he played in the preseason.
“I don’t play with fear,” Wilson said. “I never have. You play smart just like a normal game. Got to know when to get down, you got to know when to slide, get out of bounds, all those things. But like I said, I know how to avoid certain things, certain hits and all that. You got to be smart out there. But also, I don’t strap on the pads and just get ready to go and play fearful. Anybody knows me, I don’t think that way. So I’ll be ready to rock and roll if that’s the case.”
Tomlin didn’t give a list of others who would or wouldn’t play, but he said “all who are healthy will play.”
The first-team units on each side of the ball are scheduled to play “roughly” four series after playing three with Fields against the Houston Texans in the first preseason game, Tomlin said.
“Last week they played about two series roughly offensively and defensively,” he said. “We have a mindset of playing roughly four this time around, but that’s subject to change based on what it is that we see.
“If they’re highly effective and productive and we get good quality work, we might move on from them to get more of exposure to the other guys, and so that’s a template in which we work. … We had a two-series mentality last time out. This time out, we kind of got a four-series mentality.”
Tomlin, though, didn’t have a concrete plan for the number of series Fields or the second-team units would play this time around.
“We’re going for roughly four series with that first group and then we’re going to play from there. I don’t have it etched in stone,” he said.
Against the Bills in the joint practice, Fields and the offense scored in a two-minute drill, capped with a long touchdown run by the quarterback. Wilson took the first reps in the opening “seven shots” drill against Buffalo’s defense, scoring on two of the unit’s four attempts. He hit George Pickens and Dez Fitzpatrick for touchdowns. Fields took over for the final three reps and scored on all three, including a read-option touchdown where he ran in nearly untouched, and two passes to Cordarrelle Patterson and Scotty Miller.
“it’s kind of cool just going up against other guys,” Fields said. “Different defense than we’ve seen for the past few weeks, different skill sets, so it’s always fun.”
And though fights have erupted at other joint camps around the league this year, the Steelers and Bills remained fairly incident-free. The largest scuffle broke out when the Steelers’ offensive line took exception to extra celebrating after linebacker Dorian Williams knocked down Fields’ pass at the line of scrimmage. It broke up fairly fast without a major incident.
“Guys on our team aren’t dumb,” Fields said. “I think we’re all trying to be smart here. We don’t want anything extra to happen. We’re all professionals at the end of the day and really don’t want any after-play fighting and stuff to happen.
“I think guys are being smart and of course guys are going to check the defense and stuff like that if they’re getting chippy and stuff like that, just because it’s what we do. It’s what football players do. But nobody’s going to go over the top, at least from our side.”
