Exit Meeting: QB Mason Rudolph
Experience: 8 Years
Approaching nearly a decade in the NFL, will Mason Rudolph finally get his turn at the helm, or remain everybody’s Plan B? Since his second season, he has always been the No. 2, mostly with the Steelers, unless due to injury. He had an unsuccessful starting stint in 2019, with one glimmer of hope at the end of 2023.
Last offseason, Rudolph functioned as the QB1 during most of the offseason. He was only keeping the seat warm, it turned out, for Aaron Rodgers. It’s quite possible that exact scenario plays out again this year, or possibly even worse.
Considering even new Steelers head coach Mike McCarthy is hyping up Will Howard, the noise is hard to ignore. Is Mason Rudolph at risk of falling to third on the depth chart, or possibly even off the roster? Outside of QB coach Tom Arth, he has no ties to this coaching staff. And he hasn’t been with Arth very long, either.
A third-round pick in the 2018 NFL Draft, Mason Rudolph arrived in Pittsburgh as a potential future starter. He never fully lived up to how the Steelers graded him, however, though some will claim malpractice. Many indeed maintain that the Steelers organization mistreated him, perhaps repeatedly. Yet nobody else in the NFL has ever seemed particularly interested in acquiring his services, even at his peak.
Still, there is a non-zero chance that the Steelers enter the 2026 season with Rudolph starting. That scenario would require Aaron Rodgers retiring, at a minimum, or signing with another team. In that scenario, the Steelers would also fail to acquire another starter-capable candidate, in free agency, trade, and the draft. And he would, ostensibly, have to beat out Will Howard, who is the new Mason Rudolph.
Rudolph will turn 31 years old in July. That is not old for a quarterback, but it’s certainly not young, either. In theory, he could fit a Mike McCarthy system, yet McCarthy hasn’t yet mentioned him by name. Some have chosen to make something of that, but it’s probably too soon to read those tea leaves.
The Pittsburgh Steelers find themselves licking their wounds after yet another early playoff exit. This is a repeated pattern for the organization, but with major change coming. As the Steelers conduct their own exit meetings, we will go down the roster conducting our own. Who should stay, and who should go, and how? Who should expect a bigger role next season, and who might deserve a new contract? The resignation of Mike Tomlin makes those questions much more difficult to answer, but much more important. We’ll explore those questions and more in these articles, part of an annual series.