PITTSBURGH (AP) — Russell Wilson and Aaron Rodgers have been at this for a long time. The prime-time lights aren't new. The stakes for their teams aren't, either.
The stakes for themselves personally? Well, that's another matter. When the 35-year-old Wilson steps onto the field as the starter for the Pittsburgh Steelers (4-2) for the first time on Sunday night to face Rodgers and the New York Jets (2-4) — a near certainty after Steelers coach Mike Tomlin deemed Wilson healthy enough to be “in consideration” to take over for Justin Fields — Wilson will do it under a specter of doubt that he didn't run into much during his first 12 seasons. And Wilson will do it while trying to beat a familiar foe.
Wilson and Rodgers met frequently in the 2010s and early 2020s while playing for Seattle and Green Bay. Now they're trying to burnish their legacies in places where the sight of them wearing the home team's uniform still feels a little surreal. “We've had battles along the way and everything else,” Wilson said.
“I really respect how he throws the football, how he goes about throwing it and it’s very special to watch.” Tomlin seems to feel the same way about Wilson, whom he lured to Pittsburgh minutes into free agency in March after Denver paid Wilson nearly $38 million to go away. Yet the optimism that greeted Wilson when he arrived was blunted during the summer and early fall while he dealt with a calf injury.
That gave Fields an opportunity he literally ran with.
