Mason F Rudolph

And you said something about me pushing buttons

 

You should have had a big rainbow with the saying....The More You Know. LoL

 

I was doing my best to channel my inner Jeh.

 

And knowing is half the battle...

 

LoL

 

what happens when Mason "Clark Kent" Rudolph leads us to a win this weekend.

 

We get to play the following weekend

It’s a pretty simple win or go home formula

Welcome to football

 

Probably a half-dozen to a dozen GMs looking at Masons small sample size and just waiting. Every one of them saying, let me see what he does this playoff game.

If he is solid, look out. His price will skyrocket. Way too many below average qbs out there for this guy to not get offers.

Just my opinion.

Hope Kenny shows the same growth. Big Kenny fan.

 

I’m not sure that is what his mother named him

 

Keep in mind that he did throw a pass that should have been a touchdown against the Bengals. Remember, against Arizona, they had two drives earlier in the half that were stalled by bad snaps by Cole on third down.

Opposition matters, too. The Steelers opened with a 49ers defense that was dominant early in the season and the Browns, who were right there with the Ravens for the best team in the league. The offensive line was horrible early in the season. They couldn't run block and they couldn't protect Pickett. Take the first interception against the 49ers as an example. They could do nothing at all on offense, so he forced a ball. I'm not sure we saw what the offense was supposed to be in that game. The entire offense was too busy getting its collective ass kicked.

Rudolph's first two starts were against the Bengals and Seahawks, two defenses that had fallen apart and the offensive line had shown signs of improvement from those first few games before he stepped in.

 

Ahhh....You beat me to it. LoL

 

Yes, that pass against the Bengals was catchable (caught, really, but no challenge). It was also late and a bit off target, but also good enough. And yes, Cole has had bad snaps affect drives... but he hasn't magically figured out how to snap with Mitch or Mason at QB.

The Bengals D was almost the same with Pickett as it was for Mason (Reader obviously is a big loss, but that defense was bad with or without him). And yes, the beginning of the year saw us play against a couple of good defenses... but Kenny has also played plenty of bad ones too. The Bengals, Jags, and Texans are all bottom 10 in the league vs. the pass and Kenny played poorly in 2/3 of those games. The Rams and Titans are also bottom half of the league vs. the pass and vs. those defenses he averaged less than 200 YPG with 0 TD passes (in the LAR game, we had 130 total yards going into the 4th and Kenny had a huge quarter, so that accounts for really the only quality quarter of football played in those games).

I can't argue that Kenny didn't play better post-Canada. It was 6 quarters, and 4 of them were pretty good, and that Cincy game is probably the only complete football game Kenny has had in his 24 start career. Is it enough better (and enough of a sample size) to believe that Kenny can consistently move the ball and score points moving forward? Not yet. I also think it is hard to argue that Mason hasn't out-performed Kenny in many ways. Again, its a small sample size (and I don't think Mason is the long term answer either), but its enough of a sample for me to believe that quality QB play was the only thing holding the offense back (Canada or not) from at least being ok. Now I think Canada was holding us back from being a good offense (as I think he was never going to lead a high end offense regardless of the level of QB play), but Kenny was a large part of the problem too.

I think (despite what I would want to have happen) we are going to see Kenny get to start games next season with a new OC. I don't expect him to be much better (if any), but I can at least understand why people may be optimistic that he wont be as terrible as he has been for the majority of his starting career. I also expect there to be a pretty short leash for Kenny next season, as he should be much better in year 2 than he has shown, and he has gotten a MASSIVE amount of opportunity to prove he can play (and we've put up with a TON of poor play). I think Pittsburgh is the only organization that wouldn't have benched Kenny by now and moved on. I'd love to be proven wrong and have Kenny ball out, but I expect a poor half season in 2024 to be Kenny's last as a starter in the NFL. I hope that isn't the case, but I have little optimism to the contrary.

 

THEN his price tag goes up!