Halicke: Wilson started out slow — and low — but soon 'cut it loose'

When a quarterback change is made for a team that's 4-2, there ought to be a good reason for it. And, it will surely put the new quarterback -- and the head coach that went 'Lone Ranger' on the decision -- under the microscope.

In his Pittsburgh debut, Russell Wilson led the offense to a season-high 37 points, beating the Jets, 37-15, to improve to 5-2 on the season. Mike Tomlin's decision to make the switch to Wilson from Justin Fields was met with pushback from a portion of the fan base, some of the media and even former Steelers quarterback greats such as Ben Roethlisberger and Terry Bradshaw said they should have stuck with Fields.

And when the first half of Wilson's first start included this sequence of plays ...

... it had fans booing and many wondering if and when Tomlin might make a switch back to Fields.

After those two plays, Wilson was 2 for 8 for 19 yards. The offense had then gone three-and-out on three straight series. The Jets weren't piling it on when they had the ball, but Wilson was showing nothing that made anyone think the offense was going to do anything.

But all it took was one play to break the seal on offense. And, of course, it was Wilson's patented moon ball:

By the end of the night, Wilson wound up completing 16 of 29 passes for 264 yards, two touchdowns, no interceptions and earned one rushing touchdown on a quarterback sneak. Many questioned Wilson's mobility, but he only took one sack in the game for a 4-yard loss. That's a net total of 260 team passing yards.

The Jets came into Sunday night's game with the league's second-ranked pass defense, allowing just 148.8 passing yards per game. In games against the Patriots and Broncos earlier in the season, they allowed just 60 and 61 passing yards, respectively. New York was missing DJ Reed and Michael Carter II, two of their three best cornerbacks, but still had a stout pass defense. The Steelers' 260 passing yards was the most the Jets had surrendered in a game all season, surpassing the 221 yards Brock Purdy and the 49ers put up against them in Week 1.

"I thought he was excellent," Tomlin said of Wilson after the game. "I thought he got better as the game went on. But I'm not surprised by that. It's been a while since he played some ball, but I thought he settled in, knocked the rust off, distributed the ball around and played well."

In breaking down Wilson's performance, there's no doubt he had quite a bit of rust. It was clear as day with some of the severe misses he had, such as the aforementioned two-play sequence. And, he missed several throws low and/or short throughout the night, such as this potential touchdown to George Pickens:

Part of that looks like bad mechanics or lack of arm strength while throwing off platform. Either way, the misses were often enough to see Wilson was not at his best. Even his moon ball to Pickens was significantly underthrown, along with this pass down the right side in which Pickens made one heck of a catch:

However, Wilson clearly got more comfortable as the game continued, and started to show what the Steelers had been missing in the passing game when Fields was at quarterback.

One of the things Wilson displayed was great touch on some throws, and that was clear from the very first pass of the game:

But Wilson continued to throw with touch throughout the game, perhaps none more impressive than his touchdown pass to Pickens late in the first half to pull the Steelers within two points:

Then later in the game, there was this beauty to Pat Freiermuth, which would have been perfectly on target and Freiermuth not been held:

Going into the game, the Steelers knew the Jets were one of the league leaders in utilizing man coverage. Thus, they knew they would have their opportunities to throw the ball downfield, giving Wilson an opportunity to use his arm.

"I thought Arthur Smith did a great job letting me cut it loose and guys getting open and guys moving around just making tremendous plays," Wilson said after the game. "I thought he called a great game. He helped me get into a groove. We talked about it earlier in the week and at the end of the week he said it may take a second, you know. I never believed that, but it did. And then we caught a groove."

The play-action game was a huge part of what Smith did to try and get Wilson in a groove. A significant portion of his dropbacks were out of play-action, and Wilson was able to hit either guys in the flat or when guys were schemed open, hit took the slam dunk like this one to Calvin Austin III late in the game:

It's important to note that Wilson's athleticism was on full display. The offensive line had issues throughout the night, but Wilson was able to escape pressure quite often. Even if it didn't always result in a positive play, it never wound up with a catastrophic outcome.

Perhaps the most impressive of all was a little play-action rollout in which he had a pass rusher right in his face as soon as he turned around, but tapped into his baseball background and side-armed one on the money to Freiermuth for a big gain:

Listen, it wasn't the most efficient performance. Wilson completed 55.2% of his passes. That's gotta be a better number. However, it's clear to see why Tomlin wanted to switch to Wilson. He helped stretch the defense downfield, he made play-action a viable weapon, which it hadn't been under Fields, and he did it all without sacrificing all that much in quarterback mobility. No, he didn't gain anything rushing, but he was able to use his legs to avoid negative plays.

It's just one game. Before anyone tries to claim that Wilson is about to put the team on his back toward a Super Bowl run, let's see multiple games of this first. But, he did all of this against a pretty stout Jets defense. And, for the second time this season, the offense scored more than 30 points and put up over 400 yards of offense. Fields needed six games to do either of those things. It took Wilson just one.

On the outside, it looked like Tomlin took a huge gamble by starting Wilson despite his team going 4-2 over their first six games with Fields under center. But, Tomlin knew there was something to be explored by starting Wilson, but not in a way that jeopardized the team's chances of winning. He knew that Wilson stood a solid chance of opening things up through the air. And, while it was a rough start, Wilson proved Tomlin to be true, at least for this game.

Thus, Wilson will remain Tomlin's QB1, and rightfully so.