Was it really just 6 quarters that did in Steelers QB Mason Rudolph's season?
The cliche goes that “votes of confidence” in sports are dreaded, the implication being a public show of support for an athlete or coach often can portend his firing, demotion or release.
But over the 2½ weeks since the season ended, Mason Rudolph has gotten some pretty influential votes of confidence in his status as the Pittsburgh Steelers’ No. 2 quarterback.
First, it was Mike Tomlin. “I’m comfortable with Mason Rudolph,” Tomlin said during his season wrap-up news conference. Later, Tomlin added, succinctly: “Mason is the backup” to starter Ben Roethlisberger.
#Steelers coach Mike Tomlin gave an early endorsement to Mason Rudolph serving as the backup to franchise quarterback Ben Roethlisberger in the 2020 seasonhttps://t.co/mP3uFOrbOm
— Tribune-ReviewSports (@TribSports) December 31, 2019
And if the endorsement from the coach wasn’t powerful enough, how about even higher up the organizational hierarchy — as in, to the very top?
“As we sit here today,” Steelers president Art Rooney II said in a meeting with local reporters Wednesday, “we are all comfortable with Mason being our backup.”
While some are clamoring for the Steelers to add a veteran as insurance for again losing Roethlisberger, the Steelers’ top brass — publicly, at least — seems intent on sticking with Rudolph.
Rudolph indicated he believed he deserved the role in 2020, as well. In his most recent meeting with media, a day after the Steelers season ended (with Rudolph on injured reserve because of a shoulder injury), Rudolph expressed optimism about his first NFL playing time.
“I mean, you are looking at about six quarters of probably subpar play,” Rudolph said, referring to efforts at Cleveland and Cincinnati in November that got him benched in favor of Devlin Hodges, “so I am not too worried about that.
“Yeah, would I have loved to give our team a better chance to win against the Cleveland Browns and not turn the ball over and maybe come out a little more sharp against (Cincinnati), yeah, but you can’t second guess. Hindsight is 20/20. But I am going to go back and look at everything on the tape and try to correct mistakes and what can I get better from Year 2 to Year 3, how can I improve, and that will be a collective conversation between coach Tomlin, (offensive coordinator Randy Fichtner) and myself, and I think I have a lot of improve on.”
Here’s a quick look at some stats to see if they support Rudolph’s assertion it was the Nov. 13 loss at Cleveland and the first half-plus of the Nov 23 game at Cincinnati that torpedoed Rudolph’s final numbers.
Rudolph ended the season completing 62.2% of his passes at 5.9 yards per attempt with an 82.0 traditional passer rating, 34.3 ESPN QBR and 53.0 grade from Pro Football Focus.
Subtracting the “six quarters of probably subpar play,” Rudolph’s numbers in his other eight games (six starts) look like this: 65% completion percentage at 6.5 yards per attempt, 94.0 passer rating, and average game QBR of 46.9 and average PFF game grade of 60.8.
For perspective, with tossing out the two games in Ohio, Rudolph would have moved from 37th among 39 qualifying quarterbacks to 33rd in the PFF ratings. He would move from 30th (dead last) among qualifiers in ESPN’s QBR up to 25th.
It’s in traditional passer rating where Rudolph’s point has its most support: He would move from 29th of 32 up to 13th in the NFL in passer rating if the games at the Browns and Bengals were not included in his statistics.
“The bad and the good, you take it all in stride,” Rudolph said on locker-cleanout day. “I will look at what I did well, what I did wrong, and make the corrections and try to improve on it. But I got to play in the NFL and win some games and have some adversity there, too — and overcome it, like I always have. Like I have continued to. So I think it was a blessing to play in this league with this team. That’s the way I looked at it, and that’s how I always will look at it.”
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Chris Adamski is a TribLive reporter who has covered primarily the Pittsburgh Steelers since 2014 following two seasons on the Penn State football beat. A Western Pennsylvania native, he joined the Trib in 2012 after spending a decade covering Pittsburgh sports for other outlets. He can be reached at cadamski@triblive.com.
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