If the Pittsburgh Steelers thought more highly of QB Mason Rudolph by the start of the 2022 offseason, they may not have signed Mitch Trubisky to a two-year, $14.285 million contract. Maybe, just maybe, they wouldn’t have drafted Kenny Pickett in the first round a month later. Or at least they may not have done both.
Two years later, head coach Mike Tomlin acknowledges that he feels differently about the six-year veteran now. “Oh, certainly”, he said, via the team’s website, during his post-season press conference when asked if Rudolph had changed his perception of the player with his recent play.
“I don’t think any of us can deny what we’ve seen over the last month or so”, he added. “I cannot underscore how impressive it is to be ready. Forget performance, man, to be ready to deliver. And he was, and that preparedness showed. Certainly, we’re less speculative about his capabilities because there’s evidence of it and evidence of it in tough circumstances”.
The circumstances in which he played during the 2023 season were undeniably tough, but it wasn’t the first challenging hand he’d been dealt. As a second-year player after dressing for zero games as a rookie, he was thrust into the starting lineup midway through Week Two when Ben Roethlisberger tore the tendons in his throwing elbow.
He ultimately started eight games in 2019, playing in 10, going 176-for-283, 62.2 percent. He threw for 1,765 yards with 13 touchdowns to nine interceptions. Several games in, he was benched for then-rookie college free agent Devlin “Duck” Hodges.
Rudolph spent the subsequent two seasons serving as Roethlisberger’s direct backup, making only two starts. He lost in the 2020 season finale to the Cleveland Browns, the one year they were good, 24-22, but that was only after rallying with two fourth-quarter touchdown passes. It had been 24-9.
His next start the following season came on short notice when Roethlisberger tested positive for COVID-19. While he struggled, it was a pair of fumbles late in the game that prevented them from having a better shot of beating the Detroit Lions, ultimately tying in overtime.
It was after that season that Roethlisberger retired, and Rudolph was the only quarterback remaining at that point. Former general manager Kevin Colbert, among others, repeatedly said they were “comfortable” with Rudolph if they had to go into the season with him as the starter. But they always maintained they would add to the position in a significant way.
What followed was a “competition” for the starting job, one in which Rudolph was largely relegated to third-string reps, but quite a number of them, with an equal share of work in the preseason. To the best of my knowledge, nobody with the team ever specifically called it an “open” competition.
And it wasn’t one, unsurprisingly. Rather, it was one that was handicapped. Which makes sense when you have one player who has four years of experience in your system and four years’ worth of watching him develop. That, versus two players entirely new to you, including a rookie.
The new parties are going to need an imbalanced percentage of the work and of the quality work. And they are going to have a wider benefit of the doubt with the anticipation of greater room for growth. And so Rudolph found himself remaining as the third-string quarterback behind the well-paid veteran and the high-pedigreed rookie.
That didn’t change until a year and a half later when the formerly shiny and intriguing first-round pick was injured, and the veteran backup fell flat on his face in his stead. With the season on the line, the team spiraling amid a three-game losing streak, Tomlin turned to Rudolph.
And he saved the season, helping them win the final three games, reaching a 10-7 record and a postseason berth. While he threw a red-zone interception in the loss to the Buffalo Bills, he showed resilience. He kept scratching and clawing and turned a 21-0 game into a 24-17 game with more than enough time to close the gap if the defense could get a stop.
It was an exciting and illuminating one that has the Steelers viewing him in a different light a year later. But the rest of the league has gotten its first best look at him in nearly half a decade as well. After getting the cold shoulder as a free agent a year ago, he should have suitors. Tomlin wasn’t the only one watching.
