PITTSBURGH — Pittsburgh Steelers starting quarterback Russell Wilson was limited in the team’s practice on Thursday afternoon with lingering effects from a calf injury, throwing a late curveball into the team’s plans just days before their Week 1 bout with the Atlanta Falcons on Sunday.

Wilson was seen around the team, though he did not have his helmet on and never took a snap throughout the day.

Head coach Mike Tomlin told reporters that Wilson’s calf tightened up on him and that he is visiting a doctor to have his situation further diagnosed.

Wilson did not appear on the team’s injury report that released following Wednesday’s practice and had been a full participant in recent days.

The Steelers are taking all of the proper precautions to ensure his injury doesn’t worsen ahead of his regular season debut with the team. Per Tomlin, however, there isn’t much concern from the team regarding his long-term availability.

Wilson initially suffered the injury during the Steelers’ conditioning test at the beginning of training camp that limited his involvement in team sessions and even opened the door for Justin Fields to come in and challenge him for the starting job.

Wilson sat out of the team’s opening preseson contest against the Houston Texans before playing a combined six series over their following two games against the Buffalo Bills and Detroit Lions.

He was officially named the starting quarterback last week and was also awarded the offensive captaincy for Pittsburgh on Monday as a result.

Wilson is coming off of a 2023 campaign with the Denver Broncos where he threw for 3,070 yards, 26 touchdowns and eight interceptions with a completion percentage of 66.4%, the third-best rate of his 12-year career.

The Steelers signed Wilson to a one-year this offseason after the Broncos released him from a $245 million contract, taking on $85 million in dead money in the process.

Make sure to bookmark Steelers OnSI for the latest news, exclusive interviews, film breakdowns and so much more.

The Pittsburgh Steelers will rely upon George Pickens to be the top target in the team’s passing offense. With a bunch of unproven names behind him on the wide receiver depth chart, Pickens needs to step up and become a true No. 1 target for the Steelers to have a successful passing game.

New Steelers safety DeShon Elliott has seen a lot of great wide receivers in his time around the NFL. He played with Tyreek Hill in Miami in 2023, so he knows what top wide receivers look like daily. Elliott says that he has never seen someone like Pickens, though, who makes alien-like catches every single day.

“I had Tyreek Hill on my team,” Elliott said on The Sick Podcast — Steelers Crazy. “I have never seen a freak of nature like George Pickens.”

Pickens looked like he had another gear in his game this training camp. He put up an excellent performance, catching passes all over the football field, including as an intermediate route runner. Over the last few seasons, Pickens has largely only been a deep ball player with occasional flashes on underneath balls. Yet, suppose he can put it all together and become a dynamic route runner and separator. In that case, the Steelers will have something serious to work with in this offense, even if the pieces around Pickens in the wide receiver room are suboptimal.

Pickens has great body control and hands. That will carry with him no matter what routes he runs. The Steelers can scheme up significant mismatches even with the rest of the wide receiver room just by using Pickens in innovative ways.