Mike Tomlin’s enjoying the win. He’s not interested in who the Pittsburgh Steelers’ starting QB will be next weekend against the Seattle Seahawks. But at some point, and some point soon, he will have to make a decision. Asked if it was too early to ask about a starter next Sunday, Mason Rudolph or Kenny Pickett, Tomlin agreed it wasn’t the right time to offer an answer.
“You’re right,” Tomlin said after the Steelers beat the Cincinnati Bengals, 34-11, via the team website. “It is early to ask.”
Based on reporting and his practice participation, it’s likely Pickett will be healthy enough to play next weekend. He worked in a limited fashion throughout this past week, though he was ruled out on Thursday’s final injury report. But he’ll be 28 days removed from his ankle injury suffered against the Arizona Cardinals with NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport noting Pickett is expected to be healthy next Sunday against Seattle.
But Rudolph had a stellar performance in Saturday’s blowout win over the Cincinnati Bengals, throwing for 290 yards and two touchdowns in Pittsburgh’s biggest win of the entire season. Pittsburgh easily had its best offensive output of the year and its first 30-point win since 2020, breaking a drought that nearly touched 60 straight games.
While Tomlin didn’t answer who will start, he praised Rudolph’s overall showing.
“He was Mason. We talked about it early in the week. He’s got a belief in himself,” Tomlin said. “He’s aggressive in his play style and I thought he did a really good job not displaying a lot of rust. For a guy who hadn’t played obviously a lot.”
With the Steelers now 8-7 and back in the playoff race, Tomlin will have to either stay with the hot hand in Rudolph or turn to Pickett, the team’s first-round pick and hopeful franchise quarterback. Pittsburgh still needs help to make the playoffs, no longer in control of its own destiny, but Saturday was a critical first step.
Asked by reporters during his presser, Rudolph said those decisions were above his paygrade.
“I’d love to play, but that’s out of my hands. I’ll find out the marching orders as we go.”
Tomlin will speak again with the media on Tuesday for his typical noon press conference. We’ll see if he has any more clarity on who the team will turn to at quarterback. We know it won’t be Mitch Trubisky. But we don’t know if it will be Rudolph or Pickett. Until there’s an answer, it’ll be among the biggest storylines of the week. Last week, it was George Pickens. This week, it’ll be the quarterbacks.
