2019 was a tough but rewarding year in the life of Mason Rudolph, the two-year veteran quarterback of the Pittsburgh Steelers, who started eight games for the team during the regular season and posted a record of 5-3—the only one of three quarterbacks to start for the team this past season to do so.
It’s fair to say that he had his ups and downs as a quarterback, playing a key role in a midseason 7-1 stretch before being benched. He also took a beating. He missed Week Six with a concussion after taking an ugly hit to the head against the Baltimore Ravens. He ended the year with a trip to the hospital for a procedure designed to prevent his aorta from being punctured due to an injury he suffered in Week 16.
In between, he was assaulted with his own helmet.
But along the way, he won some games, he tossed 13 touchdowns, and he made some significant plays. Most importantly, he learned a lot, about the game, about himself, and about what it takes to play at a high level in the NFL. He shared his thoughts on Instagram recently:
2019 brought great opportunity, moments of elation, and disappointment. That is life. While the season did not end the way I envisioned, the experience, the scars, the moments, have allowed me to know. To know that I can get to where we want to go. To be at ones best, when the best is needed. There are moments, plays, and decisions you’d like to have back— but life is not a dress rehearsal. What I love best about the game of football and the NFL is that you have to go prove it every day. Prove you belong. The minute you think you have it figured out, the game will humble you. There is no secret, it is in the dirt.
Now, he speaks from experience. There was perhaps a time in which he felt he figured things out, while they were winning, only to learn that he was sorely mistaken. Even the great ones continue to learn over the length of their entire careers.
Rudolph was originally taken by the Steelers in the third round of the 2018 NFL Draft. They viewed him as in the same class as those quarterbacks taken in the first round that year. Overall, so far it’s hard to say that isn’t the case, outside of Lamar Jackson.
He started eight games, of course, because of the injury suffered by Ben Roethlisberger. He went down in Week Two with a season-ending elbow issue that required surgery, and he is still perhaps months out from throwing a football. Rudolph is currently rehabbing from his own injury.
