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NFL Draft

Do Steelers Have QB Of The Future On Their Roster?

  • The Draft Network
  • August 19, 2020
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There’s a saying in football. Not really; it’s my saying, and I think it should be one. Independent of my hunt for a distinguished aphorism, the truth holds: if you have two starting quarterbacks, you don’t have any starting quarterbacks.

This idea is largely applicable to the college level, where coaches will rotate in different quarterbacks at different times, working a QB run game with one, a quick passing game with another, trying to manufacture offense in fits and starts instead of letting a quarterback settle into the flow of the game. The effect here is pretty clear to see: in that the two quarterbacks rotate, neither is good enough to be an indisputable starting quarterback, so there really isn’t a starting quarterback on the roster. A good current NFL example is the Chicago Bears, though there really isn’t a quarterback rotation in the pros. Between Mitchell Trubisky and Nick Foles, they have two quarterbacks who could start, but neither is really the caliber of player you want at starting quarterback. 

There is a corollary to this saying that I and nobody else uses, and it belongs exclusively to the 2019 Pittsburgh Steelers: if you have two backup quarterbacks, you don’t have any backup quarterbacks. 

No teams are in a good spot when their starting quarterback goes down, but the Steelers were relatively well prepared. They lost Ben Roethlisberger in Week 2 of the season at 0-2, but behind him was 2018 third-round selection Mason Rudolph, a player the Steelers drafted after Roethlisberger mulled retirement in previous seasons. Roethlisberger criticized the Rudolph selection in the immediate wake of the draft, saying that it reflected the Steelers’ doubt in his claim that he would play for another few years. 

One year later, it would end up mattering—not because Roethlisberger retired, but because his long career of Iron Man performances through grueling seasons came to a close with the 2019 injury, the first year in which he didn’t play at least 12 games. Rudolph became the starter, and with 2017 fourth-rounder Josh Dobbs traded to Jacksonville in the preseason, undrafted free agent Devlin “Duck” Hodges sat on the practice squad as the third quarterback. Hodges had impressed in the preseason to the point where some believed he should have won the third job above Dobbs outright.

It was a well-laid plan—but if you want to make a joke, make a plan. Rudolph stepped in and was functional as a game manager against the Niners, Bengals, and Ravens, until a concussion knocked him out of the Baltimore game and the subsequent Week 6 clash with the Chargers. Hodges was semi-decent in the Ravens game and, like Rudolph, functional enough against Los Angeles—but once Rudolph came back from injury, he reclaimed the starting job.

He was worse this time. His completion percentage dropped without an increase in target depth, he started taking more sacks, and he absolutely spiraled during an embarrassing Thursday night loss to the Cleveland Browns. Yeah, the one that ended with the Myles Garrett helmet swing—but lest we forget, that was a four-pick, four-sack night for Rudolph.

In the next game against the Bengals, with the 5-5 Steelers still squarely and improbably in playoff contention, Rudolph was pulled for Hodges, who hadn’t played well enough to hold the starting job after Rudolph’s first campaign, but was good enough to replace him now.

Hodges held the starting job for a few games, even surviving his own four-interception game against the Bills before Rudolph filled in for him in a losing effort against the Jets. With two quarterbacks who had been given the starting job across the season, the Steelers had no real starter in the final three games of the year, all of which they lost, driving them out of the playoff picture. As the Post-Gazette’s Ron Cook would write before the Jets game: “The Steelers don’t have a quarterback controversy. They don’t have a quarterback.”

Convincing yourself that either could hold a backup job isn’t difficult. Your backup quarterback ideally steps in for two games and keeps the offense functional after your starting quarterback endures a minor injury. Such was the case when Hodges stepped in for Rudolph early in the season, stealing a win against the Chargers by being perfectly cromulent and nothing more. Both quarterbacks clear that modest bar.

As such, the Steelers do have a backup quarterback—but in that they have two, they might have zero. In the event of a minor Roethlisberger injury—a fairly regular event—who do the Steelers start: Hodges or Rudolph? And perhaps a more pressing question: who on the roster do the Steelers argue has the potential to develop into a starting quarterback in the event of a Roethlisberger retirement? 

Rudolph came in under expectation for 2019 and the argument for continued development is thin given his long collegiate and current pro experience. Hodges has played over expectation thus far for an FCS rookie, and will be kept on the roster for further development—but he still has a ways to go, beyond the steep hill he’s already climbed. 

The Steelers will enter the year with Roethlisberger as their QB1, Rudolph as their QB2 (to justify the pick and pretend it’s still working according to plan), and Hodges as their QB3 (because he’s a younger FCS UDFA; it’s only fair). But for as long as teams don’t see their young quarterbacks play, they can lie to themselves about their potential—the Steelers no longer have that luxury. They know where their quarterback room stands, and it isn’t what they hoped.

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