There is a growing level of support in Pittsburgh for them to proceed with Mason Rudolph as the starting quarterback at the expense of signing Aaron Rodgers. Sure, there are probably some that would prefer the Pittsburgh Steelers to have a higher draft pick and see Rudolph as their ticket there, but there are plenty others who legitimately think Rudolph is better at this point of their careers.
Former QB Chris Simms strongly pushed back on that idea in an appearance on Pro Football Talk last week.
“I laugh because I do still hear people on TV go, ‘I don’t know, maybe Mason Rudolph will be every bit as good as Aaron Rodgers. He finished the year pretty strong, pretty good last year.’ I got, what? You mean when Tennessee couldn’t win a game at the end of the year?” Simms said via a PFT video on YouTube. “Are you talking about nine touchdowns, nine interceptions? Throw the ball three feet every play? Like come one.”
Rudolph went from the highest point of his career in 2023 with three straight wins to get the Steelers into the playoffs to one of the lowest points. He couldn’t beat out Will Levis to open the year and went 1-4 in the five games he got to start in Tennessee. He had the worst interception rate of his career on 3.9 percent of his dropbacks and his adjusted net yards per passing attempt plummeted from 9.20 with the Steelers to 5.16 with the Titans.
How much of that is the Titans being the worst team in the league? It’s hard to say, but a starting caliber quarterback should be able to string together a better individual performance regardless.
To be fair, Aaron Rodgers isn’t exactly coming off his best year either. But he did some things down the stretch in 2025 that looked like shades of the old pre-injury Rodgers that everybody is used to over the last two decades.
“It’s revisionist history. It’s stomping on Rodgers maybe while he’s down right now,” Simms said. “We saw Rodgers play at a [high] level at the end of the year, even though it didn’t mean anything. I know you and me sat in the viewing room [saying], ‘Whoa man, Rodgers, whoa, whoa.’ Throwing it downfield at Davante Adams. …He is in a different stratosphere, even at this point of his career, than Mason Rudolph.”
What’s a safer thing to bet on if you are the Steelers? A 41-year-old Hall of Famer that is one of the best to ever do it that showed some glimpses of promising play in 2024 or a 30-year-old player that has only started 18 regular season games in his career with middling success?
There is a reason the Steelers have put everything on hold to wait nearly three months on Rodgers’ decision. They wouldn’t go through that trouble with one of the more controversial sports figures if the juice wasn’t worth the squeeze. And we certainly wouldn’t be talking about interest in Kirk Cousins if they had full faith in Rudolph.
