Russell Wilson Is Buying Into What the Steelers Are Selling

More from the MMQB: Recap | Playoff picture | Takeaways | What we learned | Deshaun Watson’s future | Savoring the Jayden Daniels Hail Mary | Power Rankings | Winners and losers

Week 8 is in the books, and there’s much to learn, starting with the last thing we saw …

• Russell Wilson looks, again, like the Russell Wilson we saw in Seattle, and that’s no mistake.

The Pittsburgh Steelers’ quarterback connected on 20-of-28 throws for 278 yards, a touchdown and a 114.9 rating in Monday night’s 26–18 win over the New York Giants. He was efficient. He was explosive. Wilson and offensive coordinator Arthur Smith rolled out a plan recalling Smith’s time with Ryan Tannehill in Tennessee while incorporating how the Seahawks got the most out of Wilson early in his career.

Perhaps the lessons learned wanting something else—playing like Peyton Manning or Tom Brady while he was in Denver for two years—have hardened Wilson. Perhaps simple failure has made Wilson more receptive to the idea that Seattle’s deployment of him was always the right way. Either way, Wilson showed Monday night against the Giants and a week ago against the New York Jets that he’s buying into what Smith and the offensive coaches are selling him.

The Steelers have effectively married the run game with what they do off play-action and on movement plays, allowing Wilson to play fast—with quicker reads that don’t require him to hold onto the ball. In Denver, oftentimes, the problem was Wilson would take deeper drops, sit in the pocket and take bad sacks. Now, he’s getting out on the edge, or throwing off play-action, and if the plays are not there, taking the checkdown, or tucking it and running with it.

The result has been a pleasant surprise for the Steelers. Wilson’s second-half downfield dimes to Calvin Austin III for a touchdown, and George Pickens to set up the Steelers’ final points of the game were pivotal.  And with that payoff, it’d reason that Wilson’s investment into how the Steelers are trying to get him to play will only grow deeper.

It’s a good story, and one that has Pittsburgh in a good spot at midseason—maybe their best spot at quarterback, with Justin Fields in reserve, since Ben Roethlisberger retired.

• It’s worth taking another minute on the wild Washington Commanders-Chicago Bears finish, and one nice twist to the whole thing, to me, was that the guy who caught the Hail Mary, Noah Brown, was one of four ex-Cowboys to follow Dan Quinn from Dallas to D.C.

What I didn’t know until then was their relationship ran deeper than just that.

“He’s a leader of men, somebody I wanted to come play for,” Brown said. “We came from Dallas, but we’re also from the same part of New Jersey. I grew up about 10 minutes away from where he grew up. I know what he’s about. He knows what I’m about. And I was excited to come here and play for him.”

This sort of thing—a new head coach taking old friends with him—is normal, when NFL teams change coaches and start new programs. But in this case, what I thought was cool was that Brown had that sort of bond with Quinn, even though he played offense and Quinn coached on defense.

“DQ’s the type of guy that has relationships with everybody,” Brown continued. “He speaks to everybody, makes sure everybody’s involved. That’s the kind of guy you want to get behind and play for.”

That doesn’t just explain why Brown and center Tyler Biadasz would feel as strongly about following Quinn to Washington as defensive linemen Dorrance Armstrong and Dante Fowler did. But it also shows how Quinn lives to what he aspires for his team—for all of them to have the sort of bonds that spill over on a day like Sunday, and sustain them through times that aren’t quite as good.

So while anyone would’ve been excited to be a part of something like what we saw Sunday, if you saw a little extra from Quinn out there, that’s probably why.

“That was the first f—ing Hail Mary I’ve been a part of,” Quinn said over the phone postgame. “I’ve been in a lot of incompletes, but to see that one go … that was f—ing crazy. I felt like Jim Valvano just running around the field. It was wild.”

• And speaking of those bonds, I also asked Brown about the feeling the offense had for Jayden Daniels, given that Daniels fought all week through a rib injury, and was only cleared to play hours before kickoff.

“Five’s our guy,” Brown said. “Anytime we can get him out on the field, it’s a plus for us. We’re excited to make plays for him, and we want to do anything we can to make that happen. He’s a great player. He showed that again today, fighting like hell.”

For what it’s worth, it seems like every Sunday all the Commanders do.

• I’m not sure what Matt LaFleur has to do to win a Coach of the Year award … but I’d hope he somehow gets his due soon.

The Green Bay Packers are now 15–10 in their first 25 games post–Aaron Rodgers (16–11 if you include playoffs). By comparison, Green Bay was 11–14 in its first 25 games post–Brett Favre with Rodgers starting. And, historically, against the performances of other franchises after icons have left, the Packers look really good right now.

A big part of that, of course, is how LaFleur developed Jordan Love for three years, and how Love has come along over his year and a half as a starter. It’s also, though, how the team has played when Love has been banged up this year.

Malik Willis, acquired via trade in late August, is 29-of-39 for 380 yards, three touchdowns and a 130.3 passer rating in two starts, plus the action he got Sunday and in the opener after Love went down. Even wilder is how the run game has come alive with Willis, with defenses geared to stop it. In Willis’s two starts, the Packers have rushed for 449 yards on 90 carries. And after he came in Sunday, the Packers went for 120 yards on 20 carries.

Add that up, and it’s a staggering 569 yards on 110 carries (5.2 yards per) over roughly 10 quarters when Green Bay absolutely had to have its running game. It is, too, another tribute to LaFleur.

• The Kansas City Chiefs’ trade for Josh Uche is a good example of a championship program buying low on a guy with some natural ability and untapped potential.

Uche, quite simply, had fallen into disuse with the New England Patriots. Because of his size, he was always utilized as a designated pass rusher, who wasn’t as effective on run downs. But his place in the rotation has declined in recent weeks—he went from 40 snaps on defense in Week 4 to 24 to 20 to 11 in Week 7—in large part because he’d freelance more outside of the scheme. As such, the coaches started to feel like they couldn’t trust him.

His production wasn’t the same, either (just five sacks in 22 games the past two years after his 11.5-sack season in 2022), and the fact that he brought no special-teams value to the table might’ve been the clincher. So on the trading block he went, and at a lower price than he might’ve been dealt at last year, when the Patriots came very close to dealing him to Seattle. The ’26 sixth-round pick was the best offer New England had for him.

On the flip side, the Chiefs liked Uche coming out of Michigan four years ago, and see him as an athlete defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo can incorporate, and get third-down pass-rush value. He should be motivated, too, playing for a contender, and in a contract year.

• My read on Giants coach Brian Daboll’s comments on Daniel Jones after the loss to Pittsburgh: Very clearly, he was going to bat for an offensive line group that’s still adjusting to playing without franchise left tackle Andrew Thomas. That, to me, is why he’d be honest and put T.J. Watt’s game-changing, fourth-quarter strip sack on Jones and not the line.

“We had a shift with the tight end to get back over to Watt and didn’t get the shift,” Daboll said. “We talked about it in the locker room. D.J. feels terrible, to be honest with you. I know he’s going to own it. He came up here to say he owned it. There was a shift that accompanied the play, and he was surveying coverage deciding what he wanted to do, and we didn’t get the shift.

“And they were lining up with [Watt]—sometimes they were lining up with him left a little bit more than they have, so we were making sure if we put a chipper there that he didn’t line up opposite, so we were shifting to try to get the help where we needed to get the help.”

So what does this mean for Jones going forward? Not much, as I see it. It was just a coach making sure that even more blame isn’t heaped on his linemen—which is something Jones would later show he’s was O.K. with.

• Anthony Richardson’s tap-out on Sunday creates a crossroads for Indianapolis Colts coach Shane Steiechen.

As it stands right now, Joe Flacco gives Indy a better shot to win. Now, what’s best for the franchise long-term is to ride it out with Richardson. But based on what’s on the tape, it’s become more difficult to sell Richardson as the best option to the other players, players who really don’t care much about what’s best for the team in 2025 and ’26. And then, you had Richardson asking out of the game.

I remember Tom Brady saying that the only way a quarterback can prove his toughness in the NFL is through his availability, making sure they know he’s doing everything humanly possible in every single situation to be in that huddle for all of them. Richardson failed to do that for the Colts on Sunday. Add that to his play, and I’m sure there are more than a couple guys on the roster who are wondering what this might look like with Flacco at quarterback.

• The New Orleans Saints have had their Week 9 game in Carolina earmarked for Derek Carr’s return. They certainly didn’t expect to be 2–6 going into it. So this one has must-win written all over it.

• Good on Cleveland Browns coach Kevin Stefanski for quickly affirming Jameis Winston as the starter. It was the right move, to show confidence in the new quarterback. It also makes Cleveland a way more watchable team going forward, starting with Jim Harbaugh’s Los Angeles Chargers coming this weekend.

• Broncos-Ravens is shaping up to be a fascinating matchup Sunday. Especially with Baltimore coming off a loss.