Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Mason Rudolph has already talked about his thoughts about getting into commercial real estate as he pondered his football future last offseason. According to NFL Media’s Ian Rapoport, he also shadowed “a couple senators and congressmen” as he looked to plan for his life after football.
“Listen to where Mason Rudolph has come from. This past offseason there was little to no interest in signing Mason Rudolph, so much so that he actually shadowed a couple senators and congressmen on Capitol Hill and interned at an architectural firm and a commercial real estate firm planning for life after football,” Rapoport said Saturday on NFL Network’s NFL Gameday Kickoff show. “Now he is starting with the Steelers playing the hot hand.”
Rudolph has led the Steelers to back-to-back wins with the team scoring 30 or more points in those games, and he’s played better than any Steelers quarterback over the last few years. The question has turned to how much money he’s looking at making in free agency rather than the end of his career. It’s been a heck of a resurgence for Rudolph, now in his sixth NFL season.
If he can keep up his level of play later today and if Pittsburgh makes the playoffs, it’s been speculated that he could see a low-end starter contract offer. He went from considering his life out of football entirely to now having the potential to start in the playoffs if he can lead Pittsburgh there.
While Rudolph re-signed late in the process with Pittsburgh last May and it was presumed there wasn’t a lot of interest in his services, it’s interesting to hear the lengths he went to prepare for his post-football career. Obviously, last offseason it seemed like it was coming a lot sooner than it does now, but it is pretty wild to hear just how much Rudolph was planning for his career to end.
Now, he’s one of the most beloved people in Pittsburgh. He has the Steelers on the verge of a three-game winning streak to close out the season after a disastrous three-game losing streak that preceded him taking over as starter. We’ll see if Rudolph can keep up his performance in some poor weather conditions on the road in front of a crowd at M&T Bank Stadium that would like to see him fail more than anything.
If Pittsburgh wins, its path to the playoffs becomes a lot easier, and the fact they’re in this position is largely because of Rudolph. It’s been awesome to see him succeed and hopefully, he can keep it up.
