Transcription is both an art and a craft. It’s almost a translation from one language to another—that is, (usually) unscripted spoken words to written text. This has become an important point to make within the Pittsburgh Steelers fanbase over the past day or two, following a quote that was published attributed to WR Diontae Johnson in support of QB Mason Rudolph.
The debate becomes what he actually said versus what he is perceived to have said, and unfortunately, the answer isn’t as definitive as I would like it to be. The audio for what Johnson said originates from Nick Farabaugh, who shared it via Twitter. I have transcribed it the way I hear it, and I ask you to judge it for yourself.
Update: Brian Batko posted a video of the exchange on his Twitter feed on Friday and also offered his thoughts. It seems that the reporters present interpreted what Johnson said to mean something to the effect that, if Rudolph is the starter next year, hopefully he does well. With the second audio and first video source, I’ve amended the quote below to further reflect how and what I hear. This also helps to explain why no reporter at the time followed up. It doesn’t seem anybody present actually ran with the “Diontae Johnson endorses Mason Rudolph over Kenny Pickett” narrative, which is telling.
“I’ve been knowing how Mason plays since my rookie year”, he said. “It’s nothing I wasn’t expecting for him not to do, so I kind of had high hopes of him doing what he’s doing when he came in and became the starter. Hopefully, [if] he gets [the] job next year, [he] do what he gotta do, but other than that, he did a great job in my opinion”.
That’s generally fine praise, to be sure. The only problem is that Farabaugh and others have run with the quote of him saying that he hopes Rudolph gets the job, which some such as 93.7 The Fan have interpreted as meaning Johnson is supporting Rudolph as the starting quarterback for the 2024 season over Kenny Pickett.
This, to me, is far too much of a leap even if you agree that he did say the job rather than a job. On that point, I ask you to go back to the audio and switch the setting to 0.5x speed and listen to that part around the 20-second mark repeatedly. Tell me if you hear the job or a job. And try not to let any biases sway you. The best we can say uncontroversially is that it’s unclear and not definitive one way or the other, but I acknowledge that, listening to it repeatedly at reduced speed, I hear a more than the. The burden falls upon the journalists who were in that session who did not seek clarification from Johnson about what exactly he meant to say.
But it seems unlikely that a player would so cavalierly endorse one teammate, necessarily over another, as a starter in such a setting as the locker room cleanout day. Some players more than others are less discreet with their comments, but the probability of Johnson basically saying that he thinks Rudolph is better in this setting is incredibly low.
I think we should operate under the most logical assumptions here, Occam’s Razor, and even Farabaugh, who transcribed him as saying the, did not go so far as to posit that he was campaigning for Rudolph to start, but rather that he was hoping Rudolph would be back on the team.
Because once the accepted transcription is out there, it takes on a life of its own. Teammate Cameron Heyward even accepts the established interpretation of what Johnson said. He addressed it on his Not Just Football podcast published earlier today.
“We can’t play GM”, he said, after being read back a transcription of what Johnson is purported to have said, including the instead of a. “The players have to play, the coaches gotta coach, and we’ll see where we’re at. I don’t like—Kenny got hurt and it opened up a window for Mason to play. Mason played well in his time”.
“I don’t know what the 2024 Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback [situation] is gonna look like”, he added, “but we’ll see what happens. They’ve got to duke it out. They’ve got to find out what’s gonna go on moving forward”.
Head coach Mike Tomlin said during his press conference today that Pickett’s position as starter will be challenged. He also said that the Steelers would like to re-sign Rudolph this offseason, so putting two and two together, it’s reasonable to assume that Rudolph may challenge Pickett for the starting job.
But we’re stretching here if we’re assuming that a veteran wide receiver went in front of the media and endorsed one player over another to be the starter, both of them multi-year teammates with whom he has a close working relationship. Now that it’s gotten to the point where teammates are addressing this “controversy”, I thought it was time to address it.
