The Pittsburgh Steelers’ only particularly interesting free agent this offseason is QB Mason Rudolph. Everybody seems to claim to know what he thinks, where he’s leaning, what he prefers. Much of it won’t matter in March, though, because the market has the loudest voice in these conversations.
The sixth-year veteran began the 2023 season on the bench and ended it starting a playoff game. He raised his stock a tremendous amount, but Mark Kaboly of The Athletic is skeptical just how much. Is he a starting quarterback in the NFL? Not if teams don’t see him in that light. He believes Rudolph winds up back in Pittsburgh.
“Rudolph definitely wants a chance to be able to compete for a job and start somewhere. That’s number one for him”, he told Andrew Fillipponi and Chris Mueller on 93.7 The Fan. “Number one for him is to go somewhere and have a chance to play, and if he feels that’s here, obviously he will sign here. But there’s no ‘fresh start’ somewhere else. That is just totally not true”.
A third-round draft pick in 2018, Rudolph spent his entire rookie season in street clothes. He earned the backup role in Year Two behind Ben Roethlisberger and had his most significant playing time then. Despite some early progress, the Steelers ultimately benched him for undrafted rookie Devlin Hodges. Overall, he posted a 5-3 record with 13 touchdowns and 9 interceptions.
But he hadn’t played much since then, starting one game each the following two seasons—a loss and a tie. After Roethlisberger retired, Rudolph fell further down the depth chart in the remade quarterback room. Kenny Pickett, the Steelers’ 2022 first-round pick, eventually supplanted veteran addition Mitch Trubisky.
The pecking order remained that way until Pickett injured his ankle in the second half of last season. Trubisky was sent to the bench after struggling to fill in for him, and Rudolph flourished. The coaches left Pickett on the bench once he returned to health, wanting to ride the hot hand.
But a four-game sample size is small enough as it is, and there are certainly nits to pick in his performance. He largely faced poorly ranked defenses or those resting starters. Much of his yardage came through yards after the catch. He fumbled three times against the Baltimore Ravens and threw a costly red-zone interception in the playoffs.
A year ago at this time, teams around the league showed Rudolph little to no interest. He remained unsigned until mid-May, well after the 2023 NFL Draft. Will those same teams that passed on him a year ago now view him as a potential starter based on his four starts in the previous season?
Kaboly isn’t buying it, and frankly, I don’t really, either. The odds seem to be good that re-signing with the Steelers ends up being his best path to playing. “There is precedent right there of pushing Kenny to the side”, Kaboly reminded.
He also pointed out that he already has the support of the locker room. His teammates were happy to see him get his day. If he supplanted Pickett, either at the start of the season or during it, they would have his back.
Would he have anything like that kind of support anywhere else he signs? Would he have any stronger guarantees about a legitimate chance to start or to compete to start? I suppose we will find out beginning in March in free agency if he doesn’t re-sign with the Steelers beforehand.
