By Jonathan Clark
SteelerNation.com
In the 2018 NFL Draft, the Pittsburgh Steelers selected Oklahoma State QB Mason Rudolph with the 76th pick of the third round. At the time, this pick was looked at as quite possibly the steal of the draft. Many scouts/experts had a first round grade on Rudolph, and the fact that he had slipped this far, already, was starting to become somewhat of a shock. He stood at 6'5", weighed 235 pounds, had a cannon of an arm, and Pittsburgh had just selected his former wide out teammate at Oklahoma State, James Washington, 16 picks before him in round 2. The move made sense. Ben Roethlisberger was aging, questioning retirement, and you had a guy in Rudolph, who had first round talent, kind of fall into your lap in round 3. This was our QB of the future. He was going to sit behind Roethlisberger for a couple of years, learn the offense, get comfortable, and then lead this team to many more winning seasons. I think that is how we all saw it, is it not?
Obviously, we all know how last season turned out. We saw this team struggle game after game to find rhythm offensively. We were struggling to find ways to close out games as an offense, and overall, just kind of struggled to put points on the board as a whole. Many were quick to throw all of last year's demise on Rudolph, which I have personally thought was unfair. It was only one sample size, but many are quick to forget that in our first game against the New England Patriots in Week 1 last year in Foxborough, we took a beating, losing 33-3. We ran the ball 13 times for 32 yards, threw for 279 yards and 1 INT. Now, in all fairness, it was just one game, but we can all be assured that is not how the season was supposed to start out. Rudolph was handed the keys to the season, unexpectedly, one game later after Roethlisberger's injury, and dealt with many difficult situations throughout. While he certainly did not play well last year, his first season as a starting QB in the NFL did not exactly go as normal as most do.
After taking over for Big Ben towards the end of the 2nd quarter vs Seattle in Week 2, Rudolph showed his confidence in his first snap (how can we forget the wink at Jadeveon Clowney), and he played with emotion throughout; he honestly made great decisions with the ball during his first outing. He threw 19 passes with 12 completions for 119 yards and connected with Vance McDonald for two touchdowns. We lost, but Rudolph kept this team in the game and put them in positions to win throughout the second half. He did his job. Now, I know it was only one game, but for some reason I just feel like Pittsburgh was behind this guy. He played with so much passion and he got the crowd excited. It seemed like when he entered the game, he lit a fire under this team. As a fan, I can honestly say that after watching him play this game, I instantly got excited just for the glimpse of future it gave me. I don't usually get too excited quickly, and I realize this emotion could have been just me living in the moment, but I did have faith.
Throughout the next two games, Rudolph put up a stat line of 30 completions of 55 passes for 403 yards, four touchdowns, and one interception. During his first NFL start vs the San Francisco 49ers, he looked shaky. There were plenty of overthrows, his accuracy seemed off, and his decision making was questionable. He tried to force some balls into situations where he shouldn't have, threw that one awful interception right to the 49ers' defensive back, and he didn't ever really look comfortable in the pocket. Considering he was playing a top five defense who represented the NFC in the Super Bowl, I can't say he played terrible. He did throw two beautiful touchdown balls to Diontae Johnson and JuJu Smith-Schuster, both in clutch situations in which the Steelers took the lead. Unfortunately, those two touchdowns were not enough to win the football game, but he did play well enough to keep his team in the game up until the last possession. Then came Monday Night Football against Cincinnati. The script for this game was to try and get the ball out of Mason's hands as quick as possible, and in my opinion, this had a direct correlation to the fact that Mason's confidence in the pocket seemed to be dwindling. The game consisted of a lot of check downs to running back, James Conner, designed screen passes to all the skill guys (we had our WR's running short slants and 5-yard outs), and we even showcased the wildcat formation with Jaylen Samules at the helm. It just seemed like the coaching staff was trying to take as much pressure off of Rudolph as they could. Mason's stat line read as follows: 24/28 for 229 yards and two touchdowns spotting an 81.4 QBR. I'm not going to blame Rudolph for the way they used him here, he played a great game with the game plan that he was given. His mistakes were limited, he seemed confident in the pocket and he was extending plays more and more throughout the night. He played the part of "game manager" during this one and it helped us come out with a 27-3 victory, the first of our season, and gave us the confidence we needed going into Baltimore.
Even talking about this Baltimore game still kind of hurts. Confidence was high, we just put up our first win, the defense just came off a dominant performance, and the offense seemed to be gaining some momentum. Efficiency would be the word I would use to describe Rudolph this game. After being down by 10 to start, he finished the first quarter with a 35-yard touchdown strike down the middle of the field to JuJu Smith-Schuster which cut the Ravens lead down to three. His success in the first carried over into the second where he led his team down the field to produce two scoring drives, keeping the Steelers within striking distance going into halftime (with a little help from his defense). He didn't get rattled in the first half of this game, the Ravens were doing everything they could to try and get to the QB, and although they were successful at times, you'd always see Rudolph shoot right back up after the hit. That was, obviously, until the hit to the head/neck area by Earl Thomas in the third quarter, which left Rudolph unconscious and knocked him out of not only the last half of this game, but the next against the Los Angeles Chargers as well. It was eerie to watch, you could feel the scariness and helplessness of the situation and all you could see was #2 lying on the field. Unsure of if he would get up, if he was okay or if he could ever play football again. For a brief couple of minutes, Heinz Field was quiet. Luckily, he was able to be helped up and walked off the field by his teammates, but that image itself was one that i'm sure most of us will not forget. After this, all we really knew was that we were probably going to have to find a new starting QB for the remainder of the season, but Rudolph maintained throughout the weeks after the hit, that the image itself was a lot scarier than the actual hit itself. While I did find that hard to believe, little did I know that just three weeks after the hit, he would be back under center helping this team win football games.
The rest of the season goes without saying. We played well towards the middle of the year, but down the stretch, it just seemed harder and harder for us to find ways to win football games. Our confidence never really picked up and much of the blame fell on either Devlin "Duck" Hodges or Mason. While I would agree that solid QB play was something this team was desperately missing last year, I wouldn't be so quick to completely count out Mason Rudolph being Ben's eventual replacement. If this past weekend's draft told you anything about the Pittsburgh Steelers this year, it's that they are in win now mode and are not looking to "rebuild” anytime soon. One reason for this, many believe, is because we didn't select a QB at any point, and we definitely had our chances too. Jake Fromm and Jacob Eason were both available on multiple occasions for the Steelers to select, and they went in a different direction. This to me just showed us exactly what GM Kevin Colbert and head coach Mike Tomlin have been saying this off-season; they are comfortable with Mason Rudolph as Ben's backup and if they are, then shouldn't we be too?
To me personally, last season felt like when Mason came into the game, the game plan changed. It seemed like they weren't trying to show their full playbook to teams now having to have to go a full year without their franchise QB, which could very well be the case. The way our defense played last season, it would be easy to think the offensive play book became a little simpler throughout. Rudolph's game actually compares a lot to Roethlisberger's. His strengths coming out of college were his deep ball accuracy, he can fit balls in tight windows and that he pushes the ball vertically throughout the game. We even heard Rudolph throughout the season while being interviewed that he prefers to be pushing the ball downfield and how he wants to see more of that throughout the season. He showed strides of these traits during the first half of the season before the horrific injury. It just seemed like after this, he never looked the same. His confidence looked diminished, it looked like that hit was always in the back of his mind and rightfully so. It has to affect your mindset in the pocket, it has to change the decisions you make on the football field, ultimately it has to affect the overall mentality of a QB, which is not something you want with a guy under center. There is no question in my mind that the hit he took in that game against the Ravens had a huge affect on how he played the rest of the season. That plus the whole Myles Garrett situation, (which I just don't think is even worth getting into), being a huge off the field distraction. It just felt like the criticism never stopped and that can be hard to deal with as a second year guy. His character was put into question which would make any of us come to defense of ourselves, it just seemed like there was always something that was taking his mind off of football in ways that were out of his control. In my opinion, if the Steelers believe in him, there is no reason why we shouldn't as well.
What is your opinion on the QB situation? Do you think Mason Rudolph is next in line?
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