Although he announced that Mason Rudolph would start the season finale at quarterback, Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin did leave Kenny Pickett atop his depth chart. While that could be little more than tactical diplomacy knowing this could be the final game of the season, it’s part of a question that must be answered should they indeed make the postseason.
More to the point, who would start a playoff game if the Steelers get there, and what are the considerations? What if, for example, Rudolph doesn’t play particularly well on Saturday against the Baltimore Ravens but the run game and the defense save the day?
“The Steelers are really stuck”, former QB Charlie Batch said on PressBox Sports with Glenn Clark, “because even if Mason wins this game and they sneak into the playoffs and Kenny Pickett is back, Mike Tomlin’s gonna have to face the exact same choice on who he starts for the playoff week, and it’s gonna ruffle a lot of people wrong around here depending on what direction that goes”.
Taking a 20,000-foot view of the situation, it wouldn’t be the most shocking thing in the world if a team decided to go back to a first-round starter rather than continue to play its third-string quarterback. But when that third-string quarterback was moving the offense better and your pedigreed starter hasn’t firmly established himself as a long-term answer, it gets more complicated.
Much will ride on his performance on Saturday for Rudolph. If he plays well, he will in all likelihood position himself to start a postseason game should the Steelers advance. At the same time, Pickett should be fully healthy from the ankle injury that kept him sidelined for four games, and the playoffs are a different animal altogether.
The pulse of the fan base—and of the media for that matter—is such that few would tolerate any decision in which Tomlin goes back to Pickett right now. Many have already given up on the idea that he could be a long-term answer, let alone that he might give them a better chance to win a postseason game than Rudolph.
That’s why his in-game performance this week could be so pivotal. The Steelers have certainly found ways to win games in spite of their quarterback play over the past two seasons. It’s rather conceivable that Rudolph could have a bad to mediocre game with Pittsburgh still winning.
Having spent most of the season as the third-string quarterback, Rudolph has led the offense to 64 points and 850-plus yards over the past two weeks. He has gone 35-for-51 passing for 654 yards with two touchdowns to zero interceptions with a 118.4 quarterback rating, averaging 11.1 yards per pass attempt.
But two games are a small sample size. And much credit is owed to the running game for the offense’s success during that time, particularly in the last game, rushing for over 200 yards with three touchdowns. Who’s to say Pickett couldn’t have played similarly well with a similar performance from his supporting cast? Well, all of the people commenting below this, I suppose.
