{"id":105198,"date":"2025-06-05T05:39:10","date_gmt":"2025-06-05T05:39:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/105198\/"},"modified":"2025-06-05T05:39:10","modified_gmt":"2025-06-05T05:39:10","slug":"mason-rudolph-absolutely-looks-like-starting-qb-beat-writer-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/105198\/","title":{"rendered":"Mason Rudolph ‘Absolutely’ Looks Like Starting QB, Beat Writer Says"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Pittsburgh Steelers are still pursuing free agent QB Aaron Rodgers and have been linked to Atlanta Falcons QB Kirk Cousins, each of whom would start if acquired, but Pittsburgh\u2019s current starting quarterback is turning heads during OTAs. On The Fan Morning Show on 93.7 The Fan<\/a>, Ray Fittipaldo of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette praised Mason Rudolph\u2019s performance and leadership as Pittsburgh\u2019s starting quarterback.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbsolutely. He\u2019s out there, he\u2019s running this team, really no competition behind him, Skylar Thompson has a very limited resume and of course rookie Will Howard is the only other guy who\u2019s in camp right now. So it\u2019s easy for Mason to step into that role naturally,\u201d Fittipaldo said. \u201cBut he knows a lot of these guys on this football team, these guys have a lot of confidence in him. And yes, he looks good not only from a leadership standpoint, but he looks good spinning the ball out here too. I know it\u2019s football in shorts, none of this really matters until we get to training camp. Things will probably change by then, but he looks really solid right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Fittipaldo said, it\u2019s football in shorts so it\u2019s hard to get too excited over how someone looks. But it\u2019s at least positive that Rudolph not only looks good throwing the football but has the respect of his teammates and is taking on a leadership role<\/a>. There\u2019s no guarantee that the Steelers add a quarterback to supplant Rudolph even though they\u2019d seemingly like to. If they don\u2019t, Rudolph seems to be embracing his opportunity, and the locker room wouldn\u2019t have an issue with him as the team\u2019s starting quarterback.<\/p>\n

Even without the pads on, quarterbacks can still not look good during OTAs, but that reportedly hasn\u2019t been the case with Rudolph. It\u2019s the first time in Rudolph\u2019s Pittsburgh career where he\u2019s truly been entrusted with a starting role during the offseason, and the confidence from his coaches and teammates seems to be lending itself to a confident, collected quarterback. By training camp, there could be another starter in the room, but if Rudolph can continue to play well, the Steelers should be happy knowing they have a reliable option as a backup.<\/p>\n

And if Rudolph does wind up starting, the Steelers have a player they\u2019re familiar with and who seems to be making strides on the field that could potentially lead the team to the playoffs. While it might not be the team\u2019s first plan to start Mason Rudolph, it doesn\u2019t sound like he\u2019s overmatched right now. If that can continue, the Steelers may be in fine shape with or without Aaron Rodgers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Pittsburgh Steelers are still pursuing free agent QB Aaron Rodgers and have been linked to Atlanta Falcons…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":87081,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1586,7,560,6,7827,3917,11380,691,1481,2183],"class_list":{"0":"post-105198","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-aaron-rodgers","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-mason-rudolph","11":"tag-nfl","12":"tag-ray-fittipaldo","13":"tag-skylar-thompson","14":"tag-the-fan-morning-show","15":"tag-trending","16":"tag-weekly","17":"tag-will-howard"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114629153117797234","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105198\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}