Steel City Blitz
One man’s misfortune is often another man’s good luck. Such is life in professional sports and that couldn’t be more true for the Pittsburgh Steelers’ Mason Rudolph.
According to ESPN’s Adam Schefter the starting Quarterback of the Pittsburgh Steelers, Aaron Rodgers, has suffered a “slight break” in his left wrist. The play in which Rodgers suffered the injury was thought to have been in the second quarter leading up to halftime. That’s when Rudolph took the reins of the Steelers’ offense.
Ever the professional, Rudolph hasn’t seen a single, meaningful snap of action this year as Aaron Rodgers has led the offense from day one of his arrival. After signing to return to the Steel City in the offseason, there were some that thought Rudolph would be given the opportunity to be a ‘bridge’ starter as the team searched for a new franchise QB.
Enter Aaron Rodgers and those thoughts were immediately put to rest. In his first action of 2025 and in a situation where the team needed to win, Rudolph played well. He finished 12 for 16 for 127 yards and a touchdown pass to Kenneth Gainwell. From the get-go he was in full command of the offense seemed to have less trouble finding open receivers than has Rodgers in recent weeks.
While he’s never been good at ‘throwing receivers open,’ Rudolph did an excellent job today of giving his receivers catchable balls with perhaps just one exception to Jonnu Smith. Otherwise, Arthur Smith called a very nice game with Rudy at the helm. He was able to get him on rollouts off play action which allowed him to make one or two reads at most. Smith and Rudolph worked extremely well together in an emergency situation.
While we probably won’t get an update on this until Mike Tomlin holds his weekly press conference on Tuesday, one has to think that the Steelers will be forced to go with Rudolph as the starter. The next game is on the road in Chicago. Oddly enough, the Steelers’ organization has had awful luck there winning just once in 13 tries. That was an overtime victory in 1995. On the flip-side, Rodgers has had great success in the Windy City so it almost seems like a cruel irony that he may not be able to play.
Rudolph has done more than enough however to provide some confidence and if the running game can manufacture anything then he should be able to find some success. If it has to be all on him? That’s where I’d be concerned but for today, let’s celebrate the in over Cincy and bright performance by Rudy.
The post With Rodgers Hurt, Rudolph Shines for the Steelers appeared first on Steel City Blitz.
