Film Room: Steelers rookie LB Payton Wilson shows intriguing qualities in his preseason debut

In his debut for the Pittsburgh Steelers on Friday night against the Houston Texans, rookie linebacker Payton Wilson received quite a bit of playing time, appearing on defense for 44 snaps.

In the 20-12 loss to the Texans, he played the most minutes of any defender and showed promise in those 44 snaps.

In fact, Wilson made two of the first three plays that required a tackle, including a tackle for loss of space on the first play.

His athleticism, speed, instincts and overall range were on display all night in what was a very promising performance. Wilson showed a lot of good, but also some bad, which is to be expected from a young player making the jump from college to the pros.

On the night, Wilson received a total score of 52.5 from Pro Football Focus, including a running score of 70.5, but a passing score of 42.1. He missed two tackles, according to records here at Steelers Depot.

To see how he fared overall, I dug into the film. Let’s take a look at how Wilson performed in his NFL debut.

As I mentioned before and is now common knowledge, Wilson made waves with his first snap.

He quickly recognizes the run and slides to his left to stretch the run horizontally. Once he reads the run, he jumps inside the climbing tackle to get around the block, stays clean, and gets his hands on Houston running back Dameon Pierce to take him to the ground for the TFL.

He also lets Pierce know about it, adding a certain amount of spice to the process.

Two plays later, Wilson makes another run stop near the line of scrimmage.

He works his way downhill, reads the run and fills his gap by passing Pierce into the gap.

Wilson does a good job of keeping the ball straight, forcing Pierce inside where he gets help, and clinching him for the stop. Good reps from the rookie, who played with control here. Very positive sign.

One of the biggest concerns with Wilson coming out of college was his ability to deflect or evade blocks. With his athletic profile and the speed and athleticism he brings, evading blocks shouldn’t be a big problem.

The North Carolina State product slipped under and around blocks early Friday night, giving himself opportunities to make plays.

Here against the run, Wilson reads it quickly and works downhill in a controlled manner, keeping an eye on the scrambling lineman. You can see the athleticism and explosiveness with which he stands tight to easily evade the block, while also working inside in one fluid motion to get it to the running back for the stop.

Wilson struggled in coverage on Friday night, which was a bit of a surprise. He had a strong training camp in that regard, but Houston went right at him and was very successful.

However, he started the first half strongly in this area of ​​the game.

Wilson did a great job here, coming downhill on the play-action false but still being able to read it and change direction quickly, getting into the shallow back pocket of the receiver working his way across the formation through traffic.

Wilson’s positioning here makes it a difficult throw for the quarterback because he has to lead the receiver and because of Wilson’s positioning he can’t afford to throw the ball at the receiver or even slightly behind him. Ultimately it ends up being a drop, but it shows Wilson’s ability to change direction and quickly get open and run in coverage. This was also seen on video in college.

In open space in man coverage on a tight end and on a whip route, Wilson was picked off by TE Cade Stover.

He just seems a little overeager here with Stover, wanting to ride the potential out route and immediately selling everything to run with Stover. Instead of staying in the back pocket and trying to feel Stover out, Wilson tries too much here. He overdoes the route and gives Stover plenty of room to set up.

The rookie tight end took a clear victory and let Wilson know it.

This play was a sign of Wilson’s upcoming assignment in coverage and caused some concern as he looked too much into the backfield and lost sight of his opponent in open space.

Yes, it turns into an exercise in tussling, but Wilson takes his eyes off Robert Woods for just a split second and loses track of him after being beaten inside.

You can see Wilson looking at Davis Mills as he walks up and starts running. He loses all sense of Woods’ presence and leaves the veteran receiver completely exposed, cutting through the middle. Again, he just seems a bit overeager and trying to do too much in the moment.

He just has to stick to his assignment and try to stay in phase rather than going downhill too early and losing the feel for his receiver. It’s a tough play and a tough decision considering the Steelers appeared to be at man strength. But Wilson has to trust his teammates here and do his job.

Fortunately for Wilson, he rebounded in the second half and performed well again in the running game.

Really good replay here against the run, staying relatively clean on a block by the left tackle trying to climb to the second level.

Wilson stays at the line of scrimmage and extends the run. Although he fails to make the tackle, he forces the running back to the sideline and out of space, leaving him with only a short lead.

This does a very good job of making contact with the blocker, staying clean and straight, and stretching the situation. Well played replay by Wilson.

Overall, there have been some concerns in coverage, which is to be expected with a rookie linebacker in the NFL. It happens to the best of them. It’s better to bring the coverage issues to light now in this largely meaningless football.

But the approaches against the run were really promising. Wilson flew around, made plays and showed how his athletic profile translates to the linebacker position in the NFL.

Overall, it was a very encouraging evening where the good things far outweighed the bad.

It will be very interesting to see how Wilson builds on that on Saturday night against the Buffalo Bills.