The Steelers have a Payton Wilson problem, and it’s up to the team’s new defensive coaching staff to find answers. Going into his third year, they still don’t know quite what they have in him, and the uncertainty is inconvenient. They have aspirations for him to be a full-time starter, but he has not seized that opportunity. It’s a situation Ray Fittipaldo intends to follow closely, and optimistically.
“That’s gonna be interesting”, he said on 93.7 The Fan about the Steelers’ young linebacker. “They gave Payton [Wilson] some runway to earn that full-time job. There were some early-season struggles against the run, and I think Payton had a little bit of that pinned on him. But he didn’t put his head down, and he was still a really good player in sub-packages”.
The Steelers selected Payton Wilson in the third round of the 2024 NFL Draft. Initially projected to go higher, he fell slightly due to teams’ concerns about his long-term durability. Thus far, he has had no ill effects to that end, but he hasn’t taken over as some may have hoped. That’s for the next defensive coordinator to figure out.
“I think the question for [DC Patrick] Graham is, can you run [Wilson] out there again? Can you see if you can make it work, even though he’s not that typical body type who’s a full-time inside linebacker?”, Fittipaldo questioned. “Or do you just stick with him and he’s still gonna play 65-70 percent of the snaps? I think either way, you’ve still got a really good player”.
He added that whether Payton Wilson establishes himself as a full-time starter this year or not, he will still be worth extending next offseason, going into the final year of his rookie contract. He has largely done what the Steelers ask him to do, to his credit. It’s just that they curbed what they were willing to ask of him when he struggled in certain areas.
Entering last offseason, Wilson talked a big game, confident in his abilities, particularly in coverage. He believed he had a shot, in 2025, of being an every-down player, or damn close to it. While he increased his workload from 45 percent to 63 percent, that still leaves a lot of snaps on which the Steelers were comfortable leaving him off the field. And a lot of those went to heavier linebackers, particularly Malik Harrison when healthy.
This is a big year for Payton Wilson, given that it’s his last shot before he is due for a new contract. In theory, he has all the ingredients to be a full-time starter. If he can play with more physicality and bring more consistency to his game, they may have something. He has the talent, the athleticism, the intelligence. And he’s still two seasons into his career, so he’s not exactly a lost cause. But he’s not, perhaps, on the schedule he and the Steelers intended to be.