What’s next for the quarterback position in Pittsburgh? Well, I see at least a clear outline. Kenny Pickett enters the offseason functioning as the 1A quarterback, working with the first-team offense as he gets settled in with a new coordinator. The team efforts to re-sign Mason Rudolph. And by then likely they will have already released Mitch Trubisky, the opening-day starter of 2022.
That’s not where the Steelers are just yet, at least not publicly, anyway. I think we all know that not every answer head coach Mike Tomlin gives is strictly literally honest. He is prone to giving the impression that he doesn’t know what he thinks when undoubtedly he often has a much better idea than he shows.
The future of Mitch Trubisky on this roster is likely one of them, even if it’s not 100 percent definitively set in stone. For one thing, they’ll want to handle it tactfully and respectfully toward the player. You don’t want to find out you’re being cut during a press conference.
Not that he isn’t aware of the possibility. If he doesn’t, he’ll likely hear about it soon. “I haven’t met with Mitch yet”, Tomlin said in his Thursday post-season press conference when asked about Trubisky’s future, via the team’s website. “We’re at the very early stages of some of that stuff. We’ll see where the road leads us”.
I think we can guess with reasonable certainty where the road leads. You don’t get benched in favor of a third-string quarterback without repercussions. Trubisky is due $5,250,000 in 2024 between his base salary and his roster bonus. The Steelers owe him another $6 million in 2025. They could save all of that in both cash and cap (minus offsets for prorated guarantees in the case of the latter) by releasing him.
I think the only thing that could save his job at this point is if Rudolph’s market proves to be hotter than I think it’s going to be and they are unable to re-sign him. I do not think he is eager to leave town, nor do I think there will be many teams interested in offering him a chance at an open competition for a starting job. But even if there are, they’ll have to outbid the Steelers, who want to challenge Pickett.
Signed to a two-year, $14 million contract in 2022 to serve as a bridge starter, Trubisky lost his starting job after just four and a half games. His track record coming off the bench after that had been spotty, and then it tanked this past season.
In comparison to how Rudolph performed after Trubisky was benched last month, the Steelers were excoriated and accused of incompetence and malpractice for having not seen who the better quarterback was earlier. There’s not a complete absence of truth to that.
The fact of the matter is that Trubisky’s projected value to the Steelers in 2024 doesn’t add up to his projected compensation. Unless he’s willing to take a pay cut, I have a hard time envisioning a plausible scenario in which he remains on the team. Even if they don’t re-sign Rudolph, they may still explore other alternatives. Because let’s face it, how often do you bench your backup quarterback? How do you come back from that?
