It’s hard to get mock drafts right for every team. Right before the draft, I’ll roll out my yearly complete 7th round mock and a lot of it is probably going to be wrong in the eyes of other fans. For now, let’s just point out how absurd it is that the national media keeps mocking round one quarterbacks to Pittsburgh. Most recently was CBS’ Chris Trapasso, who has the Pittsburgh Steelers selecting Mason Rudolph with the 28th pick of this year’s draft.
He writes:
“While Ben Roethlisberger hasn’t indicated he’s ready to call it quits, that time is coming soon, possibly after the 2018 campaign. Rudolph is a similar style quarterback with a large frame who thrives from inside the pocket.”
Where to begin, where to begin.
For starters, we have a good idea of Roethlisberger’s timeframe. Though Roethlisberger has not come out directly and said it, teammates and President Art Rooney II have both said that Big Ben plans to play for at least three more seasons, with Rooney talking about a possible contract extension down the line. Knowing that, he’s not going to retire after this year. And so there’s no need to take a quarterback at all in this year’s draft, much less in the first round.
I get that it’s hard to keep up with all the minutia of the NFL. But we’re not talking about someone moving from free to strong safety or who is going from left to right guard. This was headline news.
Quarterback is going to be last one the Steelers’ agenda. The goal is to win now with players who can make an immediate impact. That will came at inside linebacker, safety, maybe somewhere else. Just any position where there’s a chance for Year One impact. That certainly isn’t at quarterback.
It’s still better than the guy who mocked an offensive tackle to Pittsburgh. At least there’s that.
