Pittsburgh is pausing the start of its Russell Wilson era.
The Steelers are riding with backup quarterback Justin Fields on Sunday in their season opener against the Falcons with Wilson sidelined due to a calf injury, NFL Network’s Mike Garafolo reported.
Fields, 25, was seen warming up on the field ahead of kickoff at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta.
Wilson, named the Steelers’ starting quarterback just weeks ago, was listed as “questionable” over the calf issue, which “cropped up before the first training camp practices,” according to NFL.com.
The Super Bowl-winning quarterback, who spent the past two seasons with the Broncos, told reporters Friday, “If I’m ready to go, I will go.”
With Wilson, 35, officially sidelined for Week 1, Fields gets the nod Sunday in what will be his first game in a Steelers uniform.
The former first-round pick spent the past three seasons in Chicago before being traded to Pittsburgh in March.
Entering Week 1, head coach Mike Tomlin gave Fields a vote of confidence while discussing the possibility of him playing.
“I’m extremely comfortable if that’s the case, certainly,” said Tomlin, who previously hinted at a game-day “package” involving Fields.
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Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin looking for a larger mission
On Sunday in Atlanta, Mike Tomlin begins his 18th season as coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers – coach. Like each of the other 31 coaches in the NFL, Tomlin is on a mission is to win games and eventually win a Super Bowl championship. Unlike most of those coaches, this is something Tomlin has already achieved.
In 2009 at age 36, Tomlin became the youngest coach to win a Super Bowl when the Steelers defeated the Arizona Cardinals. Since then he has led the Steelers to 11 playoff appearances, seven division titles, three AFC Championship Games, two Super Bowl appearances, and that title in Super Bowl XLIII.
But at age 52, Tomlin is looking to win beyond the numbers by using his prestige and platform to help African Americans with head coaching and front office aspirations to get a toehold in the competitive sports industry.
“I kind of live by the philosophy, ‘man, if all I have to do is win championships, that ain’t enough,’ because I was trained in that way,” Tomlin told me during a conversation in Raleigh, North Carolina, in May.
We spoke at the Next Up Coaching Initiative, an event co-hosted by Tomlin and his good friend LeVelle Moton, the head basketball coach at North Carolina Central University. Recognizing the challenges and barriers often faced by Black professionals in the sports industry, the two-day conference brought together search firms, sports executives, administrators and coaches in an effort to tear down some of those barriers.
I’ve admired Tomlin since 2007 when he became the Steelers coach, though I never had an extended conversation with him until the event in Raleigh. This marked the first time I’d seen Tomlin attach his name to a power initiative designed to promote and facilitate the hiring of African American coaches and executives.
Tomlin was born in Hampton, Virginia, and was influenced early on by John Thompson, who built Georgetown University into a college basketball dynasty. Thompson fused his success as a basketball coach with activism and advocacy.
Tomlin was 12 years old in 1984 when Thompson’s Georgetown Hoyas won the NCAA championship. He didn’t know much about Georgetown, but he knew Thompson.
“I had no idea the academic reputation of Georgetown,” Tomlin said. “To me when I was a kid, it was just that was just John Thompson and those T-shirts, and they played tough, tough basketball.
“I think it always had an impact on me because he was, he was strong. He was bold and he was unapologetic in being those things. And that was attractive to me. Not just on a coach level, just as a young African American kid. That was attractive to me.”
When Tomlin’s college playing career ended at William & Mary and he decided to pursue coaching as a career, he met Thompson and former Temple basketball coach John Chaney. They became life-altering influences.
“Obviously, it got really attractive to me once I found my chosen vocation and I started looking around for examples of how to do it or how I wanted to do it or aspired to do it,” Tomlin said. “Those guys were inspirations to me and the clarity of their posture and position was something that I didn’t necessarily see in my business.”
As he approaches his 18th year as coach of the Steelers, Tomlin is looking for ways to have the type of impact in his sport and his era that Thompson and Chaney had in their sport and era.
In their era, Thompson and Chaney roared, whether advocating for more Black coaches or pushing back against measures that would prevent young Black athletes from having access to scholarships.
I asked Tomlin what roaring meant to him in 2024.
“I’m still trying to figure out what that looks like,” he said. “Roaring for me is trying to figure out what else is there is for me. What purpose do I serve in this space doing what it is that I do. I love what I do. I’m hyperfocused. I’m singularly focused on it. But I realize that there’s awesome opportunities for me. Particularly on the back nine of my career, I find that space, I find that purpose that’s beyond the surface-level winning and losing that I’ve done to help others, that I give back to the game and the community that produced me. That’s roaring for me.”
There has not been an African American football coach with the clout or visibility of a Thompson or Chaney to take bold public action for a cause. Tomlin and others operate in an environment where diversity, equity and inclusion and the presentation of history are under attack.
Asked how he can use his influence in this climate, Tomlin said his involvement in the Next Up Coaches Initiative was a beginning.
“I guess that’s what I mean when I say that I’m trying to discover that,” he said. “One thing on my agenda obviously is to use it for good and I’m intentional about that. But what it specifically looks like?
“I’ve spent so much time and energy just trying to keep the lights on. I think sometimes you get focused on peripheral things and not the main thing, that you put yourself in a tough spot. For me, I’m just beginning to, to allow myself to consider what some of that looks like.”
In his way, Tomlin has subtly used his influence. He hired former Miami Dolphins coach Brian Flores in 2022 after Flores had been fired by Miami and after he filed a class action suit against the NFL.
“If I didn’t hire that guy, man, would he be employable now?” Tomlin said, referring to Flores, currently the defensive coordinator for the Minnesota Vikings. “And that’s what I mean, to be in position to do things like that to do to discover things like that. That’s where I’m at. It’s got to be aligned obviously with my overall mission, which is to pursue and win championships with the Pittsburgh Steelers. But, man, there’s awesome opportunities.”
As an NFL coach, Tomlin realizes he is in a position to guide young people, a large number of whom are Black, who are trying to establish careers and fit into their community as productive citizens.
He comes out of a tradition where one African American’s success is a success for the entire community. That sense of collective identity may have diminished, though not for Tomlin.
“It resonates with me. I don’t know that it resonates with them,” he said referring to a younger generation of players. “I’m not saying that it doesn’t, but I can’t say with great certainty that it resonates with them. It’s certainly resonating with me. But I’m old enough, I’ve seen enough, I get it. I also get the responsibility of that. And sometimes I don’t know that they get that responsibility.”
In the spirt of Thompson, Chaney and so many other African American coaches who played a major role in his life, Tomlin sees his responsibility to extend that tradition. That’s why he left training camp last May to attend a conference for aspiring African American coaches, administrators and executives.
With a new season afoot, Tomlin, as he likes to say, is big game hunting.
He is looking to roar.
“I don’t know what it looks like,” Tomlin said, “but I’m on a journey to discover.”
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