Pittsburgh Steelers WR Roman Wilson continues to draw rave reviews, including on arguably one particularly significant point. Amid his injuries last season, Wilson lost a lot of valuable practice time that limited his on-field work. The general impression is that, at that point, the team redshirted him, seeing it as a lost cause to catch him up in time to contribute as a rookie.
Well, it’s a new year and a new beginning, and Roman Wilson is behind on nothing, according to Mark Kaboly. “Roman Wilson, he’s transformed his body”, he said on the #1 Cochran Sports Showdown yesterday. “And I think he gets it mentally now. Now, we have to wait until he gets on the field and actually participates in games to make an ultimate decision. But he’s really caught your eye that first two weeks”.
Back in February, Bob Labriola shared the following opinion on the Steelers’ website: “My understanding of the situation is that at no point was there a legitimate level of confidence that Roman Wilson understood the offense and his responsibilities within it to the degree that would allow him to execute it at game speed during the stretch run of an NFL regular season”.
A third-round pick out of Michigan, Roman Wilson played five snaps as a rookie. He suffered an injury on the first day of pads during training camp, which kept him limited into the season. He spent weeks inactive before finally dressing once and barely playing. During the following weeks’ practices, he injured himself again and the team placed him on IR. He never returned, though they opened his 21-day practice window at the end of the year.
“Roman Wilson’s been good”, Jeff Hathhorn said, also on last night’s Cochran panel. “He’s saying the right things. He’s staying late after practice to work on things. You like that”.
The Steelers are hoping for a big jump from Wilson in his second season, though not relying upon it. The fact that they recently brought in WR Gabe Davis for a visit shows they are being proactive. While they have DK Metcalf as their top receiver, they know they can’t just cross their fingers and hope Wilson will immediately establish himself as the next in line.
Perhaps he can, and perhaps he will, but smart teams don’t take these things for granted. The Steelers still have Calvin Austin III, and they did sign Robert Woods. Still, it feels likely they will add a veteran of some note before training camp. And if Roman Wilson should just so happen to outperform him, well, there are worse problems to have.
One thing that is certainly not in question is Roman Wilson’s work ethic, which has drawn universal praise. If he should not succeed in the NFL, it won’t because of a lack of effort.
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