The recent injury to Minnesota Vikings rookie J.J. McCarthy has fully cleared the way for Sam Darnold to be the team’s starting quarterback. However, former NFL GM turned ESPN analyst Mike Tannenbaum believes the team should pursue another signal caller.
Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Russell Wilson was brought in by the organization to bring in an experienced presence to a team in desperate need of one at the quarterback position in recent years. The only problem for Wilson is that the team also brought in former Chicago Bears starter Justin Fields.
Now, the two are in a full-on offseason quarterback battle to decide who will be the Week 1 starter, a decision that has not been made yet by Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin.
Wilson will get one last chance to prove he deserves the starting job in the team’s final preseason game this weekend, as he will be running with the starters in the game.
But instead of seeing out the remainder of the quarterback battle, Tannenbaum believes that the Steelers should trade Wilson to the Vikings due to their recent injuries at the position.
“RC, unfortunately for Minnesota history has repeated itself,” said Tannenbaum on ESPN’s Get Up on Wednesday. “We go back to 2016, very unfortunate injury. Teddy Bridgewater had a catastrophic injury at practice. Sam Bradford gets traded from the Eagles to the Vikings. So to me, I think a win-win here would be to trade Russell Wilson to Minnesota. I think he’s a better quarterback than Sam Darnold. They could certainly battle it out.”
As for what the Steelers would then do assuming Fields earns the starting job with Wilson out of town, Tannenbaum further called for the Steelers to look into reuniting free agent quarterback Ryan Tannehill with his former offensive coordinator Arthur Smith, who is now the offensive coordinator of the Steelers.
“Ryan Tannehill is still a free agent guys,” added Tannenbaum. “You go back to the two years Ryan Tannehill was with Arthur Smith at Tennessee. They had an unbelievable run — 18-8, they averaged 30 points per game. Let him come in and at least initially back up Justin Fields.”
It would certainly be a tough ask for the Vikings to have to get Wilson up to speed with an entirely new offense in just over two weeks. But as Tannenbaum illuded to with the Sam Bradford trade, crazier things have happened.