Now that the 2021 season is over, bringing yet another year of disappointment, a fifth consecutive season with no postseason victories, it’s time to take stock of where the Pittsburgh Steelers stand. Specifically, where Steelers players stand individually based on what we have seen and are seeing over the course of the season and into the offseason as it plays out. We will also be reviewing players based on their previous season and their prospects for the future. A stock evaluation can take a couple of different approaches and I’ll try to make clear my reasoning. In some cases, it will be based on more long-term trends. In other instances, it will be a direct response to something that just happened. Because of this, we can and will see a player more than once over the course of the season as we move forward.
Player: QB Mitch Trubisky
Stock Value: Up
Reasoning: Clearly established at this point in the offseason as the Steelers’ starting quarterback, Mitch Trubisky has drawn rave reviews from teammates and coaches, which is of course shocking to hear, especially in June.
Let’s face one glaringly obvious truth first: generally speaking, you’re not going to be writing too many ‘stock down’ articles based on comments that teammates and coaches have made about a player. It is rather rare that anybody (at least a player, anyway) says anything that puts a player in a negative light.
With that said, Mitch Trubisky has certainly been garnering positive reviews in his first few weeks in the black and gold, and while it is only drills in shorts, he is also delivering results, finishing off two-minute drives and goal-to-go scenarios and things of that nature.
Somewhat surprise perhaps is just how clearcut and unambiguous the coaching staff has made it in laying out that Trubisky is functioning as the team’s start at this point, and essentially saying that somebody will have to take that job from him.
That was still the prevailing theory of how the quarterback competition would play out this summer, but many, including myself, thought that they might be coyer about the competition process in the early portions, namely in OTAs and minicamp.
They…have not been. And what he has done on the practice field thus far has not even them any reason to be coy about it. Kenny Pickett, their rookie first-round draft pick, has done some nice things, as well, working mostly as the third-string quarterback, but he’ll have plenty of ground to make up when they all get to Latrobe.
