In three starts, Pittsburgh Steelers QB Mason Rudolph secured three wins that put the team in the running for the playoffs. He ends the year with 55 completions on 74 pass attempts for 719 yards and three touchdown passes with zero interceptions. That’s a passer rating of 118.02.
And that’s the second-highest quarterback rating any Steelers player with 50 or more pass attempts has posted in a season. The only time that mark has ever been bettered was in 2006 when Charlie Batch posted a 121 passer rating. That year, he completed 31 of 53 pass attempts for 492 yards and five touchdowns with zero interceptions. Batch only started one game that year, which he won.
It goes without saying that we’re working with significantly small sample sizes here. Starting quarterbacks were attempting hundreds of passes 50-plus years ago already, so dealing with just 74 attempts is obviously not describing anything close to a full season.
Only one quarterback in team history has ever finished a season as a full-time starter while posting a passer rating of 100 or more. That would be Ben Roethlisberger, who did it three times in his career in 2007, 2009, and 2014, his highest passer rating being 104.1.
Back in 1966, Bill Nelson played in only five games but posted a passer rating of 107.8. He completed 63-of-112 pass attempts for 1,122 yards, throwing seven touchdown passes to one interception and going 3-1-1 as a starter. He missed most of that season due to a knee injury suffered in Week Two. And that was the only year in which he was any good in Pittsburgh.
A third-round pick in 2018, Rudolph was drafted by the Steelers with the thought that he could be the heir at quarterback when Roethlisberger stepped away. It never materialized that way; by the time Roethlisberger retired, the front office was unwilling to sit on its hands.
The Steelers went out and signed former second-overall pick Mitch Trubisky and then when the opportunity presented itself, drafted Kenny Pickett in the first round. Pickett has been the starter since the fifth game of his rookie year, though he dressed yesterday as Rudolph’s backup.
If the Steelers do make it into the postseason, it will present an interesting dilemma for head coach Mike Tomlin. Do they continue to move forward with Rudolph, who had some more low notes this last game out against a better defense and in bad weather conditions? Does he turn back to the player he still labels as his starter?
I don’t even need to say who the popular choice would be. The comments below this article will be sure to say it for me. But all credit goes to Rudolph for even making this a discussion, which seemed unthinkable when they first re-signed him after the draft. He’s done a nice job leading this offense, without question.
