The future of Mason Rudoph?

Some team will sit their starter to insure their draft position ala the Bengals.

 

Rudolph was 5-3 on his essentially rookie season. Go see how Rosen, Darnold, Allen, Mayfield did in their first season playing, all from that same draft 1st round. Check out Murray and Haskins and whoever else was drafted in the first last draft.

 

It’s not that... he had poor mechanics. Even I saw it

 

Mason Rudolph played against Ravens, Seahawks, 49ers, great teams last season who put up points so you must keep pace, and have great defenses against which it is tough to score. Not once did I feel we had no chance with Mason Rudolph, and not once did I feel watching the game that he would do something dumb to hurt the team. We were on par with those teams, very competitive, and those were his first outings.

 

Think we can all agree that we don’t wish to see him on the field this year unless it’s a garbage time outing. Hopefully a year behind Ben working with a proper QB coach will help him develop. I for one am rooting for him and I look forward to seeing him get another opportunity at some point.

 

Re watched the jets game and mason looked a tad better but teams knew to tee off on him. No run game does that to you lol.

aside from run defense our defense is lights out. Power running teams will kill us

 

It was just a funny picture. Your sensitive response is giving it credence.

 

Here's my gut feeling - I think the Steelers are planning to give MR a shot once Ben is done. Consider this - Mason's contract will be up at the end of 2021, just when Ben is (ostensibly) retiring. No one is going to sign MR to a starter contract based on his play last year, so the Steelers should be able to re-sign him at a reasonable price. ("Hey, Mason, here is backup money but we're going to give you a chance to start, which no other team is going to do.") Mason will have been working with Canada for two years at that point, so the Steelers can let Fichtner ride into the sunset with Ben and install Canada as OC, creating a QB/OC tandem that are familiar with one another and can work together well. Mason's contract should give the Steelers a lot of flexibility to put pieces around him. Then, if Mason fails, we go for a high-end draftee in 2023 0r 2024. If he succeeds, yay, we have a cheap starter for 4 years.

I just don't see the Steelers being bad enough this year (assuming they play at all) or 2021 to get the high draft pick they need to snag a blue chip QB prospect, so why not roll the dice with the guy you have? Certainly, Mason's play left a lot to be desired last year, but EVERYBODY'S play on the offense was fairly putrid and it's not necessarily fair to blame Mason for all of the offensive failings.

 

We were actually third in ypc allowed

 

I'd rather roll with Rudolph at this point. Ben ain't gonna do ****. We are gonna go through another 1-3 ****ty September and try to rebound as usual. It's gonna suck. You've been warned.

 

Ben doesn’t need to be spectacular with this defense just better than duck and Rudolph

 

Ben will be around 3 or 4 more years. Mason will be gone in 2.

 

Yep. Mason holds a clipboard until his rookie contract is up, forever remembered for getting pummeled with his own helmet.


Old man Ben plays on.

 

If I flip a coin and it lands on tails 5 times in a row, what do you think the odds are of it landing on heads the sixth time? The point is that MR's win loss record is not what people are concerned about, it's his fundamental flaws which will more than likely continue.

 

That's just silly. You have zero clue what Ben's gonna do. But......you are headed in the right direction with a bad September, it's Tomlin's way.

Tomlin's September philosophy = Let the boys play, let them express themselves.

Tomlin's October philosophy = Oh ****, I better step in a do some coaching.

 

Just goes to show that looks doesn't matter at QB. The best of the bunch is the one on the bottom right.

 

Something tells me it will.



Keep in mind Ben shut the season down back in September. Who knows when the NFL will be scheduling games again?! Best case scenario is the Pre-Season rolls around and the team has limited Training Camp. Ben will likely be limited if not barely practicing. Ben should not be the focus of Training Camp anyways for 2020.



Seeing what the team has in Mason Rudolph is. Time to find out how much he has grown. If he does not show enough, so be it. 2021 has some enticing QBs coming out anyway.

 

I'll say this, I can't remember one moment last season that I saw Rudolph do something that made me believe, he may not be 100% yet, but this kid has the tools to be special. Not once.

The kid is tough, and I think he can be a valuable backup, but as a starter, nope.

 

Unless he makes major strides, I don't even see him as a valuable back-up. And I agree whole-heartedly that he didn't have a single moment that made me think he could be special. It quickly evolved into....every time he drops back to pass I cringed.

 

The general consensus around here seems to be Rudolph was a wasted pick. I think it's too early to write him off. Is he the 2nd coming of Ben Roethlisberger.... no, but he is not a bust yet. I thought Rudolph was better overall than Hodges. Rudolph had 1 really bad performance against Browns... Hodges had several.... last 3 games. Rudolph was competitive vs. better teams... 49ers and Ravens. If it weren't for turnovers, Steelers win 49ers game and first Ravens game.

 

Some of that is spot on, some of it is relevant, but what is relevant for me is that until he stops throwing from his back foot, stops throwing behind receivers on crossing routes, and stops throwing flutter-balls that I could get five shots off at with my 870 Wingmaster.............he was a wasted pick.

Not to mention the fact that we desperately needed defense to give Ben a fair chance to compete.

 

We missed Tuitt last year... and Bush went through some growing pains. Hopefully now that Bush has more experience and if Tuitt can stay healthy... should be an upgrade.