Russell Wilson Failure May Have Played a Part in Steelers Passing on Shedeur Sanders

The Pittsburgh Steelers were tabbed as a popular landing spot for incoming Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders ahead of the 2025 NFL draft. Pittsburgh had no long-term answer at the quarterback position despite their flirtation with Aaron Rodgers and head coach Mike Tomlin spoke highly of Sanders in the lead-up to the draft.

Of course, the Steelers had different plans. The franchise passed on Sanders three times before the QB prospect was finally selected by the Cleveland Browns in the fifth round.

Appearing on the Bill Simmons Podcast, SI's Albert Breer gave some insight into why the Steelers may have wanted to avoid relying on a young quarterback such as Sanders heading into the 2025 season.

"I think people there would tell you that the Russell Wilson thing undermines so many things in the last month of the season and that a lot of that building really wanted them to go back to Justin Fields," Breer said. "And it was something where Tomlin was kind of, again, all on his own on that one. And I think it's part of the reason why— Tomlin liked Shedeur going into the draft. But I don't think Tomlin wanted to press that button again at quarterback after what happened with Russell at the end of the year last year. So there's some dynamics there where it's like, there's some stuff that happened at the end of the year in games, where it was just like, man like if we were just average at that position or we were just running things the way they were supposed to be run, we might have been OK."

It would line up. The Steelers were a great defensive team in 2024 but proved so inept offensively that it was almost impossible to envision them winning even one playoff game, much less making a deep playoff run. And, as always, offensive struggles start and end with the QB. Wilson was brutal on the field during Pittsburgh's four-game losing streak to end the season and led the team to all of 14 points in a wild card round loss. If they had even slightly better quarterback play, they would have been much more dangerous.

Thus, the Steelers ultimately didn't put all their eggs into the Sanders basket. Instead, they appear to be relying on Rodgers to finally agree to sign. Otherwise, next season will be more of the same with a quarterback room currently made up of Mason Rudolph and sixth-round rookie Will Howard.