PITTSBURGH (AP) — Pittsburgh Steelers tight end Darnell Washington was minding his own business during practice recently, doing his due diligence while running his route when the ball suddenly came his way.
Washington wasn’t sure what option he was on the play. he certainly wasn’t first. Probably not even second. Maybe not even third. Washington was on the back side all by his lonesome while a sea of wide receivers and running backs zig-zagged across quarterback Russell Wilson’s field of vision.
Only, Wilson didn’t like what he saw. Not enough to throw it anyway. So he pivoted to his left and found Washington wide open for a big gain.
Asked if he was surprised to find the ball in his hands, Washington nodded.
“A little bit,” he said. “I don’t know. I don’t know what was going on with the other people.”
Wilson did. He almost always seems to these days for the first-place Steelers (9-3), who find themselves atop the AFC North behind the play of their resurgent 36-year-old quarterback, who has taken a decidedly democratic approach to resurrecting his career.
The nine-time Pro Bowler threw the ball to 10 different players while piling up 414 yards last week against the Bengals. Sure, mercurial star George Pickens got the ball. But so did Washington. And third tight end MyCole Pruitt. And wide receiver Ben Skowronek, who turned his second catch of the season into a 23-yard gain on a drive that ended with one of Wilson’s three touchdown passes.
“You never know when it’s coming your way,” Skowronek said.
Not with Wilson at the controls. Fourteen different players have at least one catch this season for the Steelers. That includes Mike Williams, whose lone grab a month since being acquired from the New York Jets is a 32-yard rainbow for the winning score in the final minutes against Washington. It also includes Skowronek, who spent the early portion of the season on injured reserve and worried he’d sort of lost his place in line while he rehabbed.
Skowronek and his teammates have quickly learned that with Wilson, there is no “line.” During his six starts since returning from a calf injury, Wilson has thrown it wherever, whenever.
“It’s like in baseball,” said Wilson, a former minor league second baseman. “You’ll never hit a home run if you don’t swing. And I really believe that you’ve got to swing, you’ve got to trust guys. You’ve got to be able to trust yourself.”
Something that hasn’t been an issue for Wilson for years, even if he arrived in Pittsburgh at a crossroads following an abrupt fall from grace in Denver. The Steelers couldn’t sign Wilson to a one-year deal for the veteran minimum fast enough, and Wilson wasted little time building a rapport with players who were relative strangers.
What began with throwing sessions in San Diego has morphed into team dinners and Friday nights where Wilson and first-year offensive coordinator Arthur Smith will hole themselves up in the team facility poring over tapes and bouncing ideas off each other until their wives call wondering where they are.
On game days, that work manifests itself in various ways. It’s tight end Pat Freiermuth drifting toward an open area while Wilson scrambles, as he did two plays after Skowronek’s grab for a 25-yard touchdown. It’s Wilson calling an audible at the line of scrimmage late against Cincinnati to hit Van Jefferson for a 43-yard gain that led to a clinching field goal.
It’s not just good for the stat sheet, it’s good for the vibes.
“Morale is a big part,” Smith said.
Guys who want to be invested. Spreading it around is beneficial in a myriad of ways. It means players don’t feel they are “decoys on every play,” as Smith put it. It also means once you put it on film, it means opponents have to find a way to defend it.
And the more things an opponent has to defend, the better for an offense, particularly one led by a quarterback who will make his 195th start on Sunday when Cleveland (3-9) visits.
“Russ has seen every coverage,” Skowronek said. “He’s ran all these concepts before. So he knows progressions like probably the back of his hand.”
Besides, Wilson knows he can’t just preach about the importance of being unselfish without practicing it a little bit too. That means giving opportunities to those who have worked for it, no matter where they might fall on the depth chart.
“I think that the best part about it is that we’re all super close,” Wilson said. “And I think that bond is really everything too, and just the understanding of each guy and the relationships that we have together, it’s fun. We’re having a great time.”
It sure looks like it. The Steelers are averaging a healthy 28.7 points since Wilson recovered from a calf injury that forced him to watch the first six games from the sideline. For the first time in a long time, Pittsburgh no longer has to rely exclusively on its defense to get by.
While Mike Tomlin will never get comfortable with the idea of getting into a shootout — blame his defensive coaching roots before taking over in Pittsburgh in 2007 — it’s nice to know his team can match opponents score for score if necessary.
Another one could be looming against the Browns, who piled up more than 500 yards in a loss to Denver on Monday night. If one materializes, Wilson is ready to do whatever is necessary and find whoever is necessary, regardless of pedigree, salary or resume.
“We got to love that part of it,” Wilson said. “We can’t fear it. We’ve got to want it. We’ve got to expect it. We’ve got to embrace it. We’ve got to challenge that. We’ve got to be in those moments and be locked into that moment. I think we do an extremely good job of that.”
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