Russell Wilson has a lot of experience in football and knows the ups and downs of a season well. Even though he was not pleased with his performance after five series in a 9-3 preseason loss to the Buffalo Bills on Saturday, he wasn’t too worried.
The Pittsburgh Steelers have many new elements this season, including a new offensive coordinator, two new quarterbacks in Wilson and Justin Fields, and a rookie center, Zack Frazier. Because of this, it will take time to get everything working smoothly.
Wilson said, “So there are a lot of good (things) that goes unseen sometimes. And there’s some things that, we also have to fix and get right. And so that’s the diligence that we have to have.”
The Steelers have much to improve after another weak offensive performance, especially the offensive line, which allowed four sacks and 10 hits on the quarterback. This made it hard for Wilson or Fields to get anything going.
Coach Mike Tomlin said, “We didn’t do a good enough job protecting the quarterback.
That can’t be a problem for us. We’ve got to be better than we were tonight in that area.”
Wilson, who had been slowed by a calf injury during training camp, completed 8 of 10 passes for 47 yards. He was sacked three times during his five scoreless series.
His longest completion was a 12-yard pass to running back Jaylen Warren, who did most of the work. The deep passes that the Steelers hoped Wilson would bring didn’t show up, although George Pickens nearly made a spectacular catch in the second quarter.
Fields did a bit better, finishing 11 of 17 for 92 yards and leading the team with 42 rushing yards. Despite his efforts, he was stopped for a loss on a fourth-down run in the third quarter, which ended a scoring chance, and threw an incomplete pass on fourth down at the Buffalo 20 in the final minutes.
