DELUSIONAL: The Steelers Are Reportedly Debating Internally Whether To Start Mason Rudolph Or Kenny Pickett… And NOT An External Option
This is just so hilarious. It’s amazing that this accomplished football franchise continues to get in its own way year after year after year.
They just don’t see the big picture. They don’t have the vision. You can’t deny the success with Mike Tomlin and the whole “no losing seasons” thing but them also not getting remotely close to true Championship contention in the past decade itself has to count for something. Its confounding for sure and I don’t know how much you can put on Tomlin himself…. But golly is it hard to point the finger anywhere other than total mismanagement of the QB position.
God knows they’ve had weapons on the defensive side of the ball, and draft and develop receivers with the best of them. But I’ve been banging this drum for years. They totally botched the Big Ben succession planning and exit strategy and this is just another double down on stupid.
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I’ve said it numerous times on this website. Big Ben’s elbow injury early in 2019 was the perfect opportunity for them to fold for one season and take a QB high in the draft for the future. It was such an obvious play. Instead they traded their first rounder for Minkah and scratched and clawed their way to another .500 season.
Everything could’ve changed for that franchise in the 2020 draft.
The other thing they should’ve learned in 2019 is that Mason Rudolph is not good enough to carry that team anywhere. He wasn’t god awful… but he’s just so clearly nowhere near the level that you need to be in the AFC these days to keep up. We’ve learned pretty clearly in 2 short years that Kenny Pickett ain’t it either.
This year more than most seems like a good opportunity to pluck a QB from somewhere else to make a run at something. I dunno that the options of Fields, Wilson, or Cousins are quite at the level they need to be but they are a HELLUVA lot better than what they have now.
But they’re too prideful. Too delirious to see that they either gotta make a serious move at the QB position whether it’s a “push the chips in the middle on an established QB” or a “one step backwards and two steps forward approach” to draft a new QB…. But it’s so freaking obvious that staying the course cannot possibly be the right decision for them here.
I’m not sure why we should be surprised by this report though. It’s so on brand. It’s the same decision they’ve made time and time again for close to a half decade now. And I’m loving every second of it.