Now that the Pittsburgh Steelers’ 2023 season is getting underway after the team finished above .500 but failing to make the postseason last year, we turn our attention to the next chapter of Steelers football and everything that entails. One thing that it means is that some stock evaluations are going to start taking on more specific contexts as we get into the season, reflecting more immediate plusses and minus rather than trends over long periods. The nature of the evaluation, whether short-term or long-term, will be noted in the reasoning section below.
Player: QB Mason Rudolph
Stock Value: Up
Reasoning: The sixth-year veteran will get his first opportunity to start a game in over two years on Saturday. With Kenny Pickett not cleared to return from injury, the Steelers are turning to him over Mitch Trubisky. He will have an opportunity now to showcase himself for any interested parties—whether they be in Pittsburgh or elsewhere.
I quite frankly didn’t have “Mason Rudolph finally becomes a folk hero” on my Steelers Bingo card before the season started, but we seem to be approaching that territory. I believe he has more supporters right now than at any other time in his professional career.
Many of those supporters, including significant members of the media, former players among them, believe the team hasn’t done right by him. After Ben Roethlisberger’s retirement, the Steelers signed Mitch Trubisky in free agency and then drafted Kenny Pickett in the first round.
He’s been behind them ever since. But with Pickett sidelined due to injury and Trubisky sidelined due to excessive Trubiskying, Rudolph is the last man standing. He will get his opportunity to start another game in the National Football League this Saturday against the Cincinnati Bengals.
He has dressed as the backup for the past two weeks, but he got to work starter reps this go around for the first time since—were you going to say 2021? Well, you’re only technically correct. His last start came in 2021, but Roethlisberger was preparing to start that week before coming down with COVID-19.
The last start he prepared for as a starter came on Jan. 3, 2021, the final game of the 2020 season. He lost, but he threw for 315 yards with two touchdowns to one interception and got the offense to put up 22 points, the Steelers failing to convert on a game-tying two-point try with under two minutes to play.
Is Rudolph going to come in and be the savior? Is he going to look like he should have been the starting quarterback all along, that they made a mistake and he will be the next leader of the franchise? Of course not. We would have gotten a much better sense of that over the past five years if true.
But he should be able to put together a good game and a winning performance. He knows what he’s doing. He just hasn’t gotten to do it very much lately. Now is his chance.
