‘You Gotta Practice It’: Van Jefferson Emphasizes Importance Of Scramble Drill With New QB Room

The big storyline all offseason around the Pittsburgh Steelers revolves around their quarterback room. Even with three different guys seeing significant time under center last year, the position group is completely new going into 2024.

While most are focused on the potential position battle between Russell Wilson and Justin Fields, there are a lot of smaller implications of an all-new QB room that have gone under the radar.

For one, the players will have a new leader in the locker room, but you can at least feel pretty good about that aspect with Russell Wilson, and it’s not like any of the guys they had last year were real veterans.

Another adjustment for the team, and one that WR Van Jefferson touched on in an OTA interview, is that both Wilson and Fields tend to extend plays a lot, especially when compared to the trio of Kenny Pickett, Mason Rudolph, and Mitch Trubisky. In a video provided by the team, Jefferson talked about the adjustments you need to make playing with a mobile quarterback.

“You gotta practice it.” Jefferson said. “We do different things out here to practice that. You have two quarterbacks that can, extend plays and both of them have been known for that and they do a great job at it. So as receivers, we always gotta be on the lookout, when they’re scrambling, which way they’re going and getting in the QB vision, so he can make a play”

Take a young receiver like George Pickens, who has mainly played with Pickett and Rudolph over his two years in the NFL. It will be a bit of a transition for a guy like him. He will have to at least be cognizant of plays getting extended, and be ready to freeball after he runs his designed route.

It’s important then, as Jefferson said, to practice the scramble drill a lot before the season starts. I expect we will see a ton of it in training camp, with both Wilson and Fields under center. The league meta is moving more and more towards guys who are mobile and can at least extend plays, but there are still plenty of weapons on this team who haven’t had a guy like that throwing them the ball on the NFL level.

I think it’s easy to look at the Steelers’ putrid passing numbers, look at the talent of Wilson and Fields, and instantly assume plugging in either guy would lead to improved QB play. It probably will, but there’s more nuance there than people think. It’s going to be a new-look offense, and while it’s hard to imagine that new-look is worse than early 2023, it’s still going to take adjustments from the team as a whole.