Whether it’s tonight, tomorrow night, or at some point on Saturday, the Pittsburgh Steelers are going to add another quarterback to their offseason roster over the course of this weekend. Many believe that they will use their first-round draft pick to select one, or at least the belief is that that is what they intend to do.
Whether it happens or not, however, it is still the prevailing assumption that Mitch Trubisky, signed as an unrestricted free agent last month, will be the team’s starting quarterback for at least the 2022 season, while whatever draft pick they may add develops.
Pro Personnel Coordinator and Scout Dan Rooney Jr. talked about Trubisky recently in an episode of The Standard on the team’s website, and certainly seemed to make it clear that the team liked him a lot when he was coming out of college in 2017.
“I really liked Mitch”, he said. “Accurate, strong-armed guy who was able to move the chains with his feet at times as well. I was really excited when his opportunity came to come here, and I think he’ll be a great player. He’s a great leader, and I think he’ll fit in with our locker room well”.
Dan Rooney Jr., for those who might be wondering, is one of Dan Rooney’s sons, and is current team president Art Rooney II’s brother. He has been a member of the scouting department since the 1990s, and has long held an affinity for that aspect of the work, even though he is also a part of the ownership group.
He was on the road throughout the draft process getting a good first-hand look at this year’s top quarterback prospects, something that he also discussed in the same pre-draft episode of The Standard, and which we talked about on here yesterday.
Nothing that Rooney actually said really paints the portrait of somebody who believes that Trubisky will be their franchise quarterback for the next 10-15 years, of course. I have no doubt that they have every expectation that their next true franchise player will be somebody that they draft, whether this year or in a future year.
But they know that you have to swing in order to get a hit, and they’ve been trying to lay down some bunts where they can while setting themselves up for a big swing in the draft. Then again, franchise quarterbacks have become increasingly available via trade lately, so, you never know from what direction it might come.
