Pittsburgh Steelers general manager Omar Khan said the team wants to bring quarterback Mason Rudolph, an impending free agent, back in the fold. According to Aditi Kinkhabwala, Khan and the Steelers may get their wish.
During an appearance on The PM Team on 93.7 The Fan, Kinkhabwala said that it “certainly sounds like” Rudolph will return to Pittsburgh when free agency opens next week.
“Certainly sounds like it,” Kinkhabwala said when asked if Rudolph would return to the Steelers. “The team has made it very clear they would like him back.”
She said that it makes sense for Rudolph to remain in Pittsburgh instead of starting anew someplace else and that there wouldn’t be a major market for Rudolph, anyway.
“There’s not necessarily a mad rush for him around the league. He doesn’t necessarily have this desperate, deep desire or urgency to go play elsewhere. And the team has made it very clear that it wants him back. It’s one of those ‘all signs point to the North Pole.'”
Rudolph and the Steelers are an easy match, given he’s spent his entire career with the team, and he finally started to put it all together at the end of the regular season. Replacing an injured Kenny Pickett and a struggling Mitch Trubisky, Rudolph led the Steelers to a 3-0 record to sneak into the playoffs at 10-7 and then threw for 229 yards and two touchdowns in the team’s Wild Card Round loss against the Buffalo Bills. Pickett is fully healthy and will have the chance to win his job again, but the Steelers want competition for him, as he struggled for most of the 2023 season.
Rudolph competed with Pickett for the job ahead of the 2022 season when Pickett was a rookie. His familiarity with the team and organization makes him an easy solution as a starter-capable backup who could win the job out of camp if Pickett struggles. Although it may not be the most exciting option, bringing back Rudolph makes the most sense for what the Steelers have said they plan to do at quarterback this offseason.
At this point, it sounds as if it’s more just a matter of when Rudolph re-signs and we can finally put all the speculation about how Pittsburgh will address the quarterback room to bed. If the team signs Rudolph, they’ll enter offseason workouts with a competition between Rudolph and Pickett, and we can rule out the possibility of them adding a big-name veteran.
It’s going to be interesting to see if the Steelers do indeed bring Mason Rudolph back if he can play the way he did down the stretch in 2023 and really challenge Pickett for the starting job in 2024.
