Mike Tomlin’s favorite movie must be Rudy. Has to be. A story of the plucky, hard-working guy who puts in the effort, bides his time, and gets his moment of glory.
Mike Tomlin loves football justice. He believes in it, swears by it, even if it might be all he has. It’s one reason why he’s standing by Kenny Pickett even as his quarterback took justified heat struggling throughout the season.
If football justice isn’t just a story we tell ourselves, then Mason Rudolph deserves a dose of it Saturday against Cincinnati. There’s a story of a guy waiting his turn and finally getting his moment.
It might be his last one. Pickett is out this weekend, still rehabbing from ankle surgery, but all signs point to him returning in Week 17 when the Steelers head west to play the Seattle Seahawks. Rudolph is shaping up to making his first and only start of the season. It’s certainly his first in awhile, not opening a game since a COVID-compelled 2021 outing and not logging a snap all last season. His last “fair” start, one where he got the reps and the ability to prepare, came at the end of the 2020 season when Pittsburgh pulled key starters, like QB Ben Roethlisberger, and threw Rudolph a bone for a game.
Since Roethlisberger’s retirement, Rudolph has gone backwards. From true backup, second on the depth chart, to third-stringer in 2022 and throughout 2023. It’s a surprise he’s even here to start against the Bengals, a free agent until last May when a cold market brought him back to Pittsburgh on a one-year, minimum deal. I’m sure it wasn’t his first choice. It seems like it was his only one.
Now he’ll start a game and try to give the Steelers’ season hope. If Pittsburgh is going to storm the castle and make the playoffs, a tall and unlikely task, it has to win out. Beat Cincinnati, beat Seattle, and take down the Baltimore Ravens in the season finale. That mission starts tomorrow.
And if Rudolph plays well? If he does the job of a veteran backup quarterback, something Mitch Trubisky failed to do? Come in for a game or two, hold the fort down, keep the team competitive until the starter returns. Maybe the NFL will give him a longer look in free agency next year. Maybe the Steelers, likely to dump Mitch Trubisky, will retain Rudolph as a No. 2 quarterback. He’s playing to win tomorrow, that’s his focus, but he understands as well as any the implications beyond Saturday afternoon.
None of this is to say Rudolph will be anything significantly more than what he’s been. He’s a backup. Always will be. It’s not even predicting that he will succeed. He could go out there and lay an egg against a Bengals defense that isn’t great but gets after the quarterback and takes the football away. Working in his favor is a skill set to play smarter than Trubisky and function within the structure of the Steelers’ offense, dutifully taking what’s there and adhering to the play call. Still, don’t expect him to become the next Matt Flynn and have a bonkers day.
If there’s a guy who deserves one good NFL moment though, it’s Rudolph. He was drafted by Pittsburgh and immediately became a headline when the starting quarterback made it clear he disliked the pick along with half a fan base that – understandably – wanted the team to focus on players who could help win now, not later. His first action came during a mess of a 2019 where he was booed, replaced, got destroyed by Baltimore, assaulted by Cleveland, as Pittsburgh slogged through a miserable, messy year.
Since then, the Steelers have teased him as part of the competition. But like Lucy holding the football for Charlie Brown, they’ve always pulled it away just as Rudolph swung his leg. That’s business, that’s football, those weren’t necessarily the wrong decisions for the Steelers to make. But now they’re counting on him to win the day, to keep the team alive, if only for another week.
“The mills of gods grind, yet they grind exceeding small.”
If there are Football Gods, if there’s a Football Justice in Football Heaven, then that old Greek saying must be true. It must apply. It’s a phrase of justice, of retribution, of patience. Justice will come. You just have to wait. Rudolph has waited a football eternity. If Tomlin’s mantra is real, Saturday will prove it.
