Steelers' Mason Rudolph Gives Intriguing Insight On Who Actually Mentored Him In Pittsburgh

The hierarchy of an NFL team is one of the most interesting things in sports, and the Pittsburgh Steelers are no exception to this. Leaders are not given; they are earned. The leaders of an NFL team are those who have earned it through years of hard work and sacrifice and have gained immense respect from their peers throughout the process. For Steelers quarterback Mason Rudolph, who was drafted by the team in 2018, his answer of who the leaders of that team were, or more specifically, who wasn't named, speaks volumes about the dynamic of those Pittsburgh rosters.

The Black and Gold's current 22-game winning streak is a testament to the leadership the Steelers have in the locker room every season. Former Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin was famously loved by his players. He was a players' coach through the very end, with several players emotional when hearing the news of his departure from the Steelers. 

Rudolph appeared on The Justin Time Podcast and went in-depth about the leaders of the Steelers when he was drafted there.

"They were really the core group and some big-time leaders of our team," Rudolph explained. "The skill position guys, winning over the linemen was always, you know, still is, that is, you want to always just be yourself and try to connect with those guys. But you're spending a lot of time with them, and obviously, if they love you, they're going to fight their butts off for you, so I was just grateful for their mentorship sort of on me. Because yes, I did do my best to lead them and we won some games and we lost some games that year, but dear friends of mine still to this day."

A common theme of the best Steelers teams over their two-decade run without a losing season is their exceptional offensive line play. The best Steelers teams have dominated their opponents in the trenches and it makes sense that Rudolph would speak so highly of them. During the Steelers' current seven straight playoff losses, the offensive line, while certainly not a weakness, has also not been recently the juggernaut that it was in Rudolph's first season with the Steelers, where they carried an offense to the playoffs that was not playoff caliber besides that unit.

An interesting detail from this was that Rudolph never mentioned future Hall of Fame quarterback Ben Roethlisberger among the Steelers' leaders. Roethlisberger has been under considerable criticism lately for multiple former teammates calling him out for being a bad teammate. To be fair to Roethlisberger, former teammates have also come to the future Hall of Fame quarterback's defense, but it is clear that Roethlisberger was not universally liked in the Steelers locker room, to say the least. While Rudolph did not say anything negative about Roethlisberger here, his omission speaks volumes, especially considering how glowingly Rudolph has spoken about Aaron Rodgers as a leader on last year's Steelers team in multiple interviews.

The Trenches Will Be Key To Ending The Steelers' Playoff-Win Drought

Pittsburgh's offensive line was asked to do a lot last season protecting a non-mobile quarterback with the 42-year-old Rodgers, and they did an admirable job by all accounts in the process. However, if the Steelers can truly become elite on the offensive line, as they were throughout their dynasty run, that could be the difference in getting the Steelers back to their former heights. The Steelers' offensive line was a borderline top-10 unit in football, despite low preseason expectations. Now, it's time to build off that and take the next step.

New Steelers head coach Mike McCarthy will be tasked with breaking the Steelers current playoff woes, or his days in Pittsburgh are numbered. If this Steelers team can build off last year's success and have a top-5 offensive line, it would go a long way in the quest for a seventh Super Bowl.

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