Careful what you wish for when it comes to drafting Big Ben’s successor
If you rewind back to several seasons ago, everyone was already putting Ben Roethlisberger on unemployment, fixated on finding his replacement – before he even retires.
I recall seeing several names floated around as potential draft picks the Steelers should’ve selected – and in most cases those talking heads would’ve been flat-out wrong with their thought process, as there are many first round quarterbacks who have absolutely failed to live up to their billing.
Here’s a list of those names taken in the first round from 2013 up through the 2017 NFL Draft:
- E.J. Manuel
- Blake Bortles
- Johnny Manziel
- Teddy Bridgewater
- Marcus Mariota
- Jameis Winston
- Jared Goff
- Carson Wentz
- Paxton Lynch
- Mitch Trubisky
- Deshaun Watson
- Patrick Mahomes
With the exceptions of Watson and Mahomes, none of these players are with their original teams, with several already out of the league.
Worse, some of the so-called experts out there have instilled this train of thought that you can find your franchise quarterback in later rounds. The standard bearers for this ideology are the few and far between who have been drafted outside of the first round and have had solid careers: Tom Brady, Russell Wilson, and Dak Prescott come to mind.
Yet, those who believe you can find a first-round quality quarterback in the middle rounds don’t give the same credibility to the Steelers for drafting Mason Rudolph in the third round of the 2018 NFL Draft.
In that specific draft, five quarterbacks were taken in the first round: Baker Mayfield, Sam Darnold, Josh Allen, Josh Rosen, and Lamar Jackson.
Darnold is on his second team after being traded this offseason and Rosen is already out of the league entirely. Still, many experts were questioning how many passers could be picked early and even linked Rudolph to the Steelers in the first round, with the 28th overall pick!
Instead, the Steelers got Rudolph with the 76th pick – and people were still up in arms.
Would this be a wasted draft pick if he never sees the field? Possibly… but then Mason got his opportunity when Roethlisberger was injured early into the 2019 regular season.
I have long maintained that Steelers fans have drawn their opinion of him based on one game where Rudolph wasn’t at his best: a Thursday Night Football contest against the Cleveland Browns.
Not only was the game on a short week, but Rudolph’s teammates dropped like flies in that game as James Conner and JuJu Smith-Schuster, who were both banged up heading into the game, both left during it. Diontae Johnson also left that game as well – with a hit that had him bleeding from his ear.
The 2019 Steelers offense wasn’t pretty for the most part, but this game saw Rudolph throw four interceptions to one touchdown, with a 36.3 QB rating. The game would end with a controversial skirmish between the young quarterback and Browns defensive end Myles Garrett.
If you remove that game from Rudolph’s record, he has thrown for 14 touchdowns to 6 interceptions in his other appearances, with a 5-2 record as a starter.
He’s also completed 61.7% of his passes even with that abysmal Thursday game included – better than a lot of the league’s otherwise average passers.
Still, there’s others who contend that Rudolph can’t be Big Ben’s successor and is no better than former Steelers backup Landry Jones – who most fans don’t realize was as good as their favorite Steelers backup Charlie Batch.
Batch had played four seasons in Detroit with 56.0% of his passes completed in 46 starts and 48 games played. He threw 49 touchdowns to 40 interceptions.
With the Steelers Batch had an event 12:12 TD:INT split, completing 59.4% of his 278 pass attempts – yes, Charlie threw fewer passes with the same amount of starts as Rudolph (9) over an eight-year span that saw him appear in 18 more games than Mason.
Landry Jones had even less experience with only 108 attempts in five starts, with 19 total appearances. He would throw 8 touchdowns to 7 picks.
Those numbers either do one of two things for you as a fan: they either instill confidence in Rudolph as a starter or they prove that Batch may get more love than he deserves from his time in the Steel City.
Yet, I’ll maintain that Rudolph has at least Batch’s floor to be a competent backup when called upon, but perhaps he also has the upside to be a starter. The thing is, you have to at least give him a chance.
Comparing Mason Rudolph with those other recent picks above proves that landing a top flight quarterback is like holding a winning lottery ticket. That still doesn’t prevent teams from mortgaging their entire future on selecting one – and with different outcomes.
The Rams and Eagles both sold the farm with future picks to move up for Jared Goff and Carson Wentz. Each saw a Super Bowl appearance, with the Eagles winning in theirs – albeit without Wentz playing at all.
Now neither is on their current roster heading into 2021, but both teams are still feeling the affects of moving picks.
The Jets swapped a first round pick and three second rounders to get Darnold… who is also not on their roster anymore.
The Chicago Bears just moved up a handful of spots to pick Ohio State QB Justin Fields this season. The Bears actually gave up more to move up fewer spots than the Steelers did two seasons earlier to take LB Devin Bush.
Needless to say, we don’t know how Fields will turn out, but the odds haven’t been favorable for a lot of quarterback picks within the last decade: and consider I’m talking about the first round still too.
Outside of the first round is a further crapshoot, but rolling the dice on a middle round pick like Rudolph could net the Steelers dividends. Or it’s possible it doesn’t pan out, and they have a poor record with Mason under center – which only moves them further up the draft boards to replace him down the road.
The fact of the matter is, there’s no surefire way of knowing which players will amount to greatness in the draft, and there’s no way of telling if a veteran player can be a reclamation project as a free agent or trade prospect either. The Steelers have already learned this with former 26th overall pick, Paxton Lynch (who was on their roster in 2019) and are currently in the process of seeing if the 7th overall pick in the 2019 draft, Dwayne Haskins, has anything to offer.
For fans who want to bury Ben Roethlisberger before his playing days are over, be forewarned there will never be another Ben. Finding someone to fill his shoes will be a big task as it is, but finding any quarterback who can amount to being a serviceable starter in the NFL is just as daunting of one as well.
