Russell Wilson still thinks he can play into his 40s
Mar 15, 2024, 3:10 PM | Updated: 6:33 pm
The first press conference for Russell Wilson as a Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback lacked the fanfare of his introduction at Centura Health Training Center.
For one thing, he was not the only attraction. That March 2022 press conference, flooded with pomp and circumstance and exclamations, was for him and him alone. In Pittsburgh on Friday, the team announced his availability as part of a press conference with two other free-agent pickups this week.
It was reflective of the different place in which Russell Wilson finds himself. But his confidence remains the same. And the long-term timeline of which he speaks remains ambitious — although as much as it was two years ago.
“I’ve got five-to-seven years of the best football left in me, and it matters about which team you marry up with,” Wilson said as he addressed Pittsburgh-area media on Friday.
That timeline would take Russell Wilson to the other side of his 40th birthday. The 13-year veteran turned 35 in November. But it’s a bit down from the “10 to 12 years” he discussed when he came to the Broncos.
WHAT RUSSELL WILSON SAID WHEN HE LOOKED BACK ON HIS DENVER YEARS
If you were looking for Wilson to toss the Broncos under the bus, keep looking. He wasn’t going to play that game — although he reiterated something he told former Denver wide receiver Brandon Marshall in which he explained why he played through a lat-muscle injury in 2022.
“I think it’s all about how you look at it. In life, a lot of times when things don’t go your way, you can look at it as disappointing [or] you can look at it as growth moments. For me, my first year [in Denver] I had my lat. I was playing on it, pushing through it. Should I have done that? You know, you compete every day. You got to do what you got to do. Everything didn’t go our way. This past year, I felt like myself again. I felt like myself again, so I can’t wait to just put on the cleats and go after it.”
Wilson also appears to have a new signoff statement: “Here we go.” Based off the popular “Here we go, Steelers, here we go!” chant frequently heard at the team’s games, it is also often used in hashtag form in Steelers social media. He didn’t use it during his press conference, but he did say it in the brief video posted by Steelers digital media.
Looks like “Here we go” is his new signoff https://t.co/XzxqgsQx4m
— Andrew Mason (@MaseDenver) March 15, 2024
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