Steelers’ QB room reset: How one signing led to two trades — and…
FLORENCE, ORLANDO — In the late afternoon light of a beautiful March day, Omar Khan took questions from reporters while seated on a sectional couch. The general manager of the Pittsburgh Steelers seemed at ease. When Khan was in front of the same media four weeks prior in Indianapolis, he appeared anxious and guarded.
Khan was questioned about his team’s 2024 quarterback choices by the media gathered at the NFL combine on February 29. The lone quarterback on the Steelers’ roster at the time was Kenny Pickett. Khan said he has “complete faith” in the first-round pick in 2022.
Twenty-seven days later, Pickett was gone, moved to Philadelphia, where he will be the backup, while Khan was seated on the terrace of the Ritz-Carlton for the league’s annual meetings. The quarterbacks for the Steelers were now nine-time Pro Bowler Russell Wilson and bright former first-round selection Justin Fields. Khan smiled.
“If you had told me a month ago, when we met in Indianapolis, that Justin Fields and Russell Wilson would be our quarterbacks, and that we would be sitting here today? Indeed, I would be a little taken aback.”
An franchise long known for its meticulous decision-making procedures, the Steelers had spent the previous month attempting to break a seven-year streak without a postseason victory and maybe deliver them a shot at a seventh Lombardi Trophy.
They had given up a once-highly valued first-round selection and got not one, not two, but three flashy quarterbacks; nonetheless, selling Pickett had more to do with circumstance than grand design. Feeling the growing frustration of a postseason victory drought, Khan, coach Mike Tomlin, and team president Art Rooney II finally decided to put all of their confidence in the unknown rather than the status quo, and Wilson and Fields had been persuaded to go along for the trip.
“We’re trying to win a Super Bowl this year,” Khan stated. “Those decisions were made with the intent that they could help us this year.”
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Following the Steelers’ 31-17 wild-card defeat to the Bills on January 15, a lot of people’s attention was focused on coach Mike Tomlin’s future. During a press conference held after the game, Tomlin declined to address a question regarding his contract. But in the background, the Steelers were coming to terms with the fact that they needed to make changes to their quarterback succession plan.
Pickett sat on the bench during the playoff defeat in Buffalo. The club drafted Pickett with the No. 20 selection in 2022 as the successor to the retiring Ben Roethlisberger. Mason Rudolph, a third-string quarterback who took advantage of an ankle injury suffered by Pickett and the incapacity of backup Mitch Trubisky to lead the club to its finest offensive run in two years, replaced Pickett a few weeks prior. Observers in the league questioned whether Pickett’s time as a starter player was running out when he recovered.
However, a number of people within the Steelers organization agreed that the quarterback didn’t receive the necessary assistance as a rookie quarterback and was put in difficult situations during his two years in Pittsburgh. The image included a fragile offensive line, an unstable mix of skill players surrounding Pickett, and a dysfunctional system that led to coach Matt Canada’s midseason departure in 2023.
For Pickett, the 2024 season offered a fresh start with a team that could better prepare him for the job they chose him for. The Steelers’ decision to appoint Arthur Smith, a former head coach of the Atlanta Falcons, as offensive coordinator strengthened their dedication to a balanced attack and the run game.
There was hope that Pittsburgh’s play-action, run-heavy system would suit Pickett’s abilities. Smith had seen success with the tandem of Ryan Tannehill and Derrick Henry during his last tenure as a coach with the Tennessee Titans. Smith visited Pickett shortly after he was hired, according to team sources who spoke with ESPN, and the two got along well.
But Pickett wasn’t going to be handed the starting job, and the Steelers were committed to adding meaningful competition in the QB room. Rudolph, who impressed the team with his work ethic and poise in the four-game starting stint, was an early favorite to re-sign with the team but a deal between the two sides never got close, according to a source familiar with the negotiations. Rudolph agreed to a deal with the Titans on the first day of free agency.
The Steelers also considered reuniting Tannehill with his former offensive coordinator Smith, per a team source, and gave a cursory look at Kirk Cousins before quickly deciding signing him was out of their price range. Pickett remained Plan A.
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“Arthur’s very optimistic about Kenny, and they communicated,” Khan said in February. “We will have some strong competition there, and we’ll see where it goes.”
Asked specifically about available players, including Wilson, Fields and Cousins, Khan added: “I’m not going to go into details about the conversations that we’ve had, but I can tell you that I have an obligation to look at every avenue that’s out there to try to make us a better football team.”
Five days later, the Denver Broncos announced their intention to release Wilson, and the best avenue revealed itself.
THE INTEREST WAS mutual from the beginning of free agency. As the Falcons zeroed in on Cousins, the Buccaneers re-signed Baker Mayfield and the Raiders and Vikings appeared focused on drafting a quarterback, Pittsburgh became an attractive destination because it offered Wilson a legitimate opportunity for a starting job.
Once Denver provided Wilson with a letter permitting him to speak and meet with other teams ahead of his release March 4, negotiations could commence. The Steelers asked for an in-person meeting with Wilson, who told the Steelers he was also in the process of scheduling a visit with the New York Giants.
The morning after meeting with the Giants on March 7, Wilson flew to Pittsburgh for an in-person meeting at the team facility. Wilson FaceTimed with Tomlin prior to arriving at Steelers headquarters, and had conversations with several of the team’s defensive leaders, including Cameron Heyward, T.J. Watt and Minkah Fitzpatrick.
“The level of respect for Russ was really apparent and made you feel good,” said a source close to Wilson during the free agency process.
Sweetening the deal for Pittsburgh was Wilson’s modest $1.2 million contract, with the Broncos picking up the rest of the $85 million cap charge from the five-year extension he signed with the team in 2022. Though the acquisition of Wilson would be an uncharacteristically splashy deal for the Steelers, it was also an inexpensive one.
But Tomlin was also impressed by Wilson’s drive, a significant factor in getting the deal done, a league source said.
“The most attractive component of his profile, to me, is his quest for greatness, his chase for legacy,” Tomlin said in Orlando. “… This is a guy that’s driven, and you want to work with people of that mindset. This guy’s got a vision of what he wants his career to look like, and he’s got a lot of work to do.”
Wilson didn’t ask for assurances about a starting job, according to a source familiar with the conversations, and the Steelers didn’t give any.
“He’s competed all of his life,” the source said. “He’s not afraid of it.”
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Wilson departed Pittsburgh late on Friday, March 8, and the organization huddled all weekend before extending an offer.
“If [Wilson] gives [the Steelers] what he did with Denver, that will be more than enough,” a team source said. “Not asking him to come in and do anything different.”
The Steelers believed, one team source said, that adding Wilson “would have been a benefit to Kenny,” and the pursuit of Wilson would “kick Kenny into gear” and reignite the competitive fire that had made him so attractive to Pittsburgh in the draft evaluation process.
Instead, it did the opposite.
WILSON POSTED THE video announcement at 11:36 p.m. ET on Sunday, March 10. Set to the Steelers’ signature hype song “Renegade,” Wilson’s 50-second video featured a slow-motion compilation of Terrible Towels waving at Acrisure Stadium, finishing with a Steelers logo as the music swelled and the chorus hit.
The jig is up, the news is out. They finally found me.
Wilson posted the video along with a short, yet clear message: “Year 13. Grateful. @Steelers”
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To Pickett, the message must have seemed clear, too. The fanfare of Wilson’s late-night announcement, posted as he attended a post-Oscars party with his wife Ciara, didn’t have the feel of a quarterback coming in to be a backup. The Steelers’ plan, communicated to Pickett upon Wilson’s signing, per a team source, was that Wilson would take the first-team reps, but it would be an “open competition.”
Pickett, per multiple sources, believed the Steelers were going back on their initial plan to give him the first-team reps, placing him at a disadvantage in any competition. Pickett expressed that he would rather play elsewhere and make a fresh start than compete from second place in Pittsburgh. On March 11, the day legal tampering opened in the NFL, and less than 24 hours after Wilson’s announcement, rumblings of Pickett’s anger began reverberating around the league, per sources who were involved in free agency negotiations for available quarterbacks. Four days later, the Steelers introduced Wilson in a noon news conference and then traded Pickett to the Eagles that same afternoon in a deal that included a picks swap.
“I just thought it was time,” Pickett said upon his introduction in Philly. “I felt like it was time for the things that transpired. Wanted to get a chance to go somewhere else and continue to grow my career.”
Khan was conciliatory in response, saying, “Kenny’s a good football player, a good quarterback. I think he’s got a big future in the NFL still. Things just kind of evolved.”
Once news of Pickett’s Pittsburgh departure broke Friday afternoon, buzz around the league started building about the Steelers making a deal with the Chicago Bears for Fields.
The Steelers had been monitoring the cost to acquire Fields as they evaluated options to compete with Pickett, though it was only after Pickett had expressed his desire for a fresh start, a team source said, that the Steelers began actively engaging the Bears in talks.
Chicago, intending to move the three-year starter as it prepared to select a quarterback with the No. 1 pick in April’s draft, was willing to give Fields some say in his next destination. The Steelers were one of four teams on Fields’ radar prior to the start of free agency, along with the Vikings, Raiders and Falcons, a source familiar with Fields’ thinking said.
Fields “thought highly of Tomlin,” one source close to the quarterback said.
As with Wilson, the Steelers’ interest was mutual. Tomlin had attended Ohio State’s pro day in 2021 and wasn’t shy about praising the dynamic quarterback.
“You know who we came to see,” Tomlin said to Fields prior to the quarterback’s workout that day.
And though Smith took the job in Pittsburgh expecting to work with Pickett, Fields’ profile, one similar to Wilson’s, as a dynamic, mobile quarterback with a big arm, also fits Smith’s play-action-heavy system.
Less than 30 hours after trading Pickett, the Steelers executed the trade for Fields, acquiring him for a 2025 sixth-round pick that could be upgraded to a fourth if Fields plays more than 51% of snaps in the 2024 season.
Bears general manager Ryan Poles ultimately followed through on a combine pledge to “do right by Justin,” dealing Fields to Pittsburgh over at least one better offer from a team with an established quarterback starter, a Bears team source said.
As the trade was being finalized, the Steelers reached out to both Wilson and Fields, informing them that Wilson will have the “pole position” entering 2024. The 25-year-old Fields, they said, was added and would learn behind the 35-year-old Wilson. But, as Tomlin suggested at league meetings in Orlando, that doesn’t mean the door is completely closed on a quarterback competition.
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“Rest assured when it’s time to compete, Justin will be given an opportunity to compete,” Tomlin said. “And we’ll allow those guys to sort themselves out.”
Wilson publicly welcomed Fields to Pittsburgh on X, posting a photo of the two shaking hands after a Broncos-Bears game along with the message, “let’s get it,” and tagging Fields. “QB room bout to be [fire emojis].”
Although the acquisitions are financially low risk for the moment — Fields’ will earn $3.2 million this season, but the Steelers have to decide on his $25.7 million fifth-year option for 2025 by May 2 — the stakes couldn’t be higher for any of the central figures in the episode.
Wilson stabilized his career with a modestly successful 26-touchdown, eight-interception season in 2023, but his two-year tenure in Denver called into question whether he can be an elite passer or fuel another Super Bowl run. Wilson must prove he can thrive again, and in a new offense directed by Smith.
Fields showed flashes of talent in three seasons with the Bears, but not consistently enough for Chicago to devote its future to him. He’ll need to demonstrate he can continue to develop under Smith in 2024, and in what figures to be a backup role.
Khan and Tomlin, the key orchestrators of the deals, are on the hook to turn the Steelers into a postseason factor again, if not a Super Bowl team. Even with a better QB situation and a top-notch defense returning, Pittsburgh’s ESPN BET over-under for 2024 sits at 8.5 wins, reflecting middling perceptions within an AFC North that again seems to be a gauntlet.
The impact of the headline-grabbing maneuvers executed over 13 days in March won’t be fully known for at least 11 months.
“I owe it to the Steeler Nation to do everything I can to try to get to the Super Bowl,” Khan said. “Every decision that we make and that we talk about, every move that we make and talk about is based on that.
“Sometimes we make moves, we make decisions, sometimes we don’t, but it’s always with the intent of doing what we can to get the second week in February.”