Rudolph, Haskins eager to make bid for open Steelers’ QB job
PITTSBURGH (AP) » Mason Rudolph understands the baggage he carries. Dwayne Haskins too.
The next seven months give the two Pittsburgh Steelers quarterbacks a chance to shed the weight. For the first time in nearly a generation, the starting gig in the city they play for is up for grabs after Ben Roethlisberger all but confirmed he is retiring after 18 seasons.
And the two players who will get first crack at replacing the likely future Hall of Famer — one (Haskins) a 2019 first-round pick trying to recover from an embarrassing flameout, the other’s (Rudolph) pro career to this point defined by a brawl that ended with him getting hit in the head with his own helmet — understand the stakes.
“There’s still question marks on my game,” Rudolph said Wednesday. “I want to serve this role and I want to prove myself to my teammates, the guys that I really care about.”
Pittsburgh coach Mike Tomlin stressed in the aftermath of a first-round blowout loss to Kansas City that finished off a wildly uneven 9-7-1 season that “all options” are on the table as the Steelers try to create a path forward without the player that spent nearly two decades as the face of one of the NFL’s most consistent franchises.
Maybe, but Rudolph and Haskins will be given every opportunity to prove they can handle being a fulltime starter. Rudolph’s resume so far is spotty. He’s 5-4-1 while filling in for Roethlisberger over the past three seasons and his lone extended appearance this season came in a brutal 16all tie with then-winless Detroit in which he threw for 242 yards with a touchdown and an interception while struggling with his accuracy.
At least he saw the field. Haskins didn’t take a snap during the regular season and spent game days on the sideline in a sweatshirt after being made inactive. The 24-year-old insists it was an experience he needed after his brief but tumultuous time in Washington, which cut him in December 2020 less than two years after taking him with the 15th overall pick.
“Having to play early (in Washington) I never had a chance to learn the NFL game the way it should be done and the way the Steelers wanted done,” Haskins said. “It gave me an opportunity to understand the ‘Steelers Way’ and how they wanted their quarterbacks to operate.”
Even if the way Tomlin will ask his quarterbacks to operate going forward will be different than what was asked of Roethlisberger. Pittsburgh’s offense during his final seasons was predicated on short, quick throws designed to get the ball out of Roethlisberger’s hands in an effort to protect him behind a shaky offensive line.
The game has changed since Roethlisberger took over for an injured Tommy Maddox in Week 2 of the 2004 season. The Steelers play in a division that features one quarterback who can make magic with his feet (Baltimore’s Lamar Jackson) and another who can escape pressure when things break down (Cincinnati’s Joe Burrow).
Whoever is behind center for Pittsburgh in 2022 will need to be able to move. Maybe not with the quickness of Jackson, but a facsimile of what Burrow does would go a long way to diversifying a playbook that looked awfully stale at times under firstyear coordinator Matt Canada.