Could Mason Rudolph “be the guy” for the Steelers in 2024?
The naysayers reading the headline are already chirping “no”. They’ve been fed the 2019 version of Mason Rudolph or clips from Mike Tomlin’s press conference on Thursday, where they assume Rudolph doesn’t have a chance of returning to Pittsburgh in 2024.
I would like to address those statements and more, below, starting with Tomlin’s press conference.
A post on X from the Athletic’s Mark Kaboly started going viral when picked up by aggregators around the web:
Summarize: Tomlin is back, doesn't care about extension, will hire outside QB friendly OC ; some coaches will be gone; Pickett will be QB1; want Rudolph back; "sucks" to be eliminated; never said he wanted to take year off;Watt could've played this week; apologized for 'walk off'
— Mark Kaboly (@MarkKaboly) January 18, 2024
The problem with this statement is, Mark is trying to stuff a bunch of text into a non-blue check post limit of characters, quickly during a presser, which chopped off some of the more pertinent things Tomlin had to say about both quarterbacks. Among those questions and answers are:
Will Kenny (Pickett) resume his QB1 status?
You know, he will, but obviously, there will be competition. There’s always competition in this thing. We don’t anoint anyone. Man, I’m appreciative of his efforts and where he is and excited about continuing to work with him. But certainly, he will be challenged from a competition perspective moving forward. Competition brings the best out in all of us.
Is it the hope of the franchise that Mason Rudolph will be back and providing that competition?
It is, but he is a free agent, and it is free agency. And so, we’ll see where that leads us.
Diontae Johnson said that he hopes Mason Rudolph gets the job. Do you worry about a competition situation potentially dividing the room or the team?
I do not. I think competition is good. I think it’s good for all of us. I think it brings out the best in all of us.
Do you expect the competition to be between Mason Rudolph and Kenny (Pickett) or are you trying to bring someone else in, rather that be draft or outside?
Again, we got a lot of decisions regarding free agency. Mason (Rudolph) is scheduled to be a free agent. And so, I’d be speculating about some of those things.
Straight from the horse’s mouth, Tomlin came out and said his perception of Rudolph changed over the final four games of the season:
Did (Mason) Rudolph change your perception of him or what he might be capable of this year?
Oh certainly. I don’t think that any of us can deny what we’ve seen over the last month or so. I cannot underscore how impressive it is to be ready. Forget performance man, to be ready, to deliver and he was. And that preparedness showed. And so, certainly. You know we’re less speculative about his capabilities because there’s evidence of it. And evidence of it in tough circumstances.
Now, if you made it this far and are still stuck in the mindset that Mason Rudolph can’t “hang” with some of the big boy quarterbacks of the NFL, I have some news for you. First, if those impressions are because of Rudolph’s 2019 season, I will direct you to this lengthy article I wrote awhile ago, stating that Rudolph never got a fair shot and played with a lot of backups over the course of that campaign.
If you’re among the crowd that believes Rudolph isn’t in the same category as the remaining AFC playoff QBs, it is definitely time to put your money where your mouth is and take a look for yourself at the myriad options for betting on your favorite teams at the best aussie online casino around. I will preface this by saying this exercise isn’t perfect, and it is cherrypicked to some degree because Mason doesn’t have the same body of work to sample.
Mason Rudolph favors comparatively well to the “final four” quarterbacks in the AFC race. To do so, I took Mason’s three regular season games and his fourth outing against the Buffalo Bills. Unfortunately, I couldn’t take a playoff game for Lamar Jackson, who was on a bye and also sat out his game in Week 18. Likewise, Houston Texans QB C.J. Stroud missed some time at the end of his regular season too. (Weeks 14 and 15.)
Video games are the reason most fan perception is skewed to Rudolph “not being capable” so I only took Stroud and Bills QB Josh Allen‘s last four regular season games into account. Yes, they killed it in the playoffs and would decimate Rudolph’s showing. But that’s not the exercise: it’s to show Mason actually is capable.
As for Kansas City’s Patrick Mahomes, I kept the same curve, leaving his lackluster playoff line out in favor of his final four regular season games as well. (Mahomes completed only 56.1% of his passes for 262 yards and a touchdown against Miami during the Wild Card round.)
So, with Rudolph’s four-game stretch and the last four regular season performances accounted for Jackson, Stroud, Allen, and Mahomes, this is what the tally looks like:
The numbers speak for themselves that even the upper echelon of the conference isn’t always what it may seem. Jackson is ultimately in the running for league MVP with his gaudy numbers, but with some of his stats aside, Rudolph still stacks up favorably with the four-game samples used.
I don’t want to pretend that this four-game stretch indicates what Rudolph may do over a 17-game span. He could very clearly be worse, but the opposite could be true as well. What if he were to have a four-touchdown game at some point that raises these figures?
That would place him over the top of his peers, who are also capable of the same, I may add. Yet, the perception is that Mahomes and Allen are players who are consistently winning because they throw for 400 yards and four touchdowns per game. This thought process is best left to the fantasy football folks, who would be equally disappointed in knowing Mahomes only had one such game in 2023 – and hadn’t thrown more than two TD passes in his last ten games (including the postseason.)
Josh Allen had one four-touchdown game but no 400-yard passing performances during the 2023 season. C.J. Stroud broke free with a five-touchdown game against Tampa Bay in November but only had one other game with more than a pair of scoring passes this season. (Not including the playoffs.)
Then there’s Jackson, who we’ll leave as an outlier!
In all, we should start asking ourselves “Why not Rudolph?” The only thing that could stand in the way of that thinking is if the Steelers don’t bring him back as a free agent. But if they do, most critics are already harping on Kenny Pickett not losing his chance to be a starter because he was injured. I’m fine with that, but we should also consider that Coach Tomlin opted to stick with Rudolph over Pickett due to performance – and that very same storyline could play out if both end up in a competition this summer.
From the looks of things, that would be okay. If Rudolph’s small sample size is a flash of his potential – remember, he didn’t throw a regular season pass in two years prior – then the Steelers may have next year’s quarterback on the roster, as also noted slyly by Tomlin in his presser:
I know you said it’ll be a competition most likely, but do you believe that next year’s quarterback is currently on your roster?
Yes.
(Yes, that’s because Rudolph isn’t scheduled to become a free agent until March.)
