After earning the Pittsburgh Steelers starting quarterback role this offseason, Russell Wilson was sidelined for the first six games of the season with a calf injury. During a recent interview, he opened up a little bit about the injury.
During an appearance on The Rich Eisen Show on Friday, Russell Wilson offered his reaction to the injury, describing it as “devastating.”
“Unfortunately I had that calf injury pushing a sled, which was devastating” Wilson said on the show. “I’ve almost played 200 games, I think I’ve only missed five or so my whole career, and that was hard on me. That was different. That was challenging, just because I love practice, I love games. I never really missed much over all these years.
“And so for me, it was really important for me to focus on, number one, getting healthy again – being fully who I wanna be. I wanna play past 40 [years old] and be as healthy and be as great as I possibly can be over the years.”
Obviously, Wilson was unable to play and was forced to watch as Justin Fields took over and led the team to a 6-2 record in his place.
But Wilson said he sees the whole situation as a blessing in disguise as it forced him to learn to lead in a different way than he has become used to.
“I think the second thing was, it’s easy to lead when you’re at the front and everything’s going great – at an all-time high, but can you lead in the valley?” Wilson said.
“Can you lead when you’re in a dark place in a way? Can you lead in those moments as well? And so I think that was a blessing in disguise is to be able to not look into myself but really just being able to focus on others and servitude and just sitting on the back porch of Latrobe and those late nights in the summertime in the dormitories.”
Wilson returned to the starting lineup for the Steelers in Week 7 against the New York Jets, and he was nothing short of dominant, setting a new franchise record for passing yards in a Steelers’ debut while leading the team to a blowout win.
We’ll have to see if he can continue that dominant play this week.
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