Rather than Mason Rudolph, Russell Wilson just posted a video featuring Regenade. Pittsburgh Steelers fans are waving their Terrible Towels. They’ll be waving for Wilson during the 2024 season unless something goes catastrophically wrong. He intends to sign a one-year contract with the Steelers, with vast implications for the quarterback position.
Implication one: Mason Rudolph’s done with the Steelers. Or the Steelers are done with Rudolph. Whichever way you slice it, he’s not wearing the Black and Gold in 2024. He’ll hit unrestricted free agency on Wednesday and finally get a true sense of his worth for the first time.
Implication two: Kenny Pickett to the bench? While not impossible, I have a hard time wrapping my brain around the idea of Wilson committing to sign with a team on March 10 without having reasonable certainty that he is the starter.
But we know Pickett isn’t going anywhere. He’s under contract for at least the next two years. For all we know, the Steelers may turn back to him in 2025. But will Rudolph ever play for the Steelers again? That’s certainly hard to imagine at this point.
And is that more on Rudolph or the Steelers? He obviously wanted to explore his market, but something changed in general Omar Khan’s tone. He spoke less optimistically about Rudolph remaining a Steeler in 2024 last week. Did Rudolph basically tell him you’re not giving me what I want, or did they start talking about Wilson? Perhaps somewhere in between.
The Steelers moved up in the third round of the 2018 NFL Draft to select Rudolph, whom they rated within the same cluster as those quarterbacks drafted in the first round. He never started a game in his six-year tenure without injuries or illness factoring into his playing time.
Outside of an eight-game starting run in 2019, with its ups and downs, Rudolph spent most of the rest of his Steelers career out of sight and on the bench. That all changed dramatically at the end of last season as he led them to the postseason. He helped them win their final three games, even remaining in the lineup after Pickett returned from his ankle injury.
Head coach Mike Tomlin opted to start him over Pickett in the playoffs, which tells you a lot. The “hot hand” argument doesn’t apply to a franchise quarterback. Now the Steelers turn to yet another quarterback, or so it seems, in favor of Pickett.
Which certainly seems to leave Rudolph out in the cold. But he’ll have plenty of time to warm up beginning today, as he finally has the opportunity to speak with other teams with an actual body of work to speak to his talents.
I don’t know that we’ll ever know exactly how things went down. Perhaps Mason Rudolph will have something to say about how his tenure in Pittsburgh ended when he signs elsewhere. But we pretty much know, now, that “elsewhere” is where he’s heading.
