DECEMBER 21: For a third straight game, the Steelers will be without Pickett. Tomlin confirmed the second-year starter will miss Week 16, bringing Rudolph back to the forefront. After an eight-start 2019 season, the longtime Ben Roethlisberger backup has made two starts since.
DECEMBER 18: As foreshadowed over the weekend, the Steelers will be making a switch under center. Head coach Mike Tomlin announced on Monday that Mason Rudolph will get the start in Week 16 against the Bengals. 
In his post-game remarks after a loss to the Colts on Saturday, Tomlin declined to confirm if Mitch Trubisky would retain the starting role. Tomlin hinted that changes on offense would be coming after Pittsburgh lost a third straight game to drop to 7-7. Now, that has been confirmed.
Rudolph will receive first-team reps in practice this week, although Tomlin did say (via ESPN’s Brooke Pryor) that starter Kenny Pickett has a chance to return to the field in time for the Cincinnati game. With Rudolph already having been named the starter, though, Pickett’s return would only be in a backup capacity as he recovers from ankle surgery.
Trubisky took over for Pickett during the Steelers’ upset loss to the Cardinals. He then started against the Patriots and Colts, games in which the team’s offensive struggles continued. In need of a late-season spark to stay alive in the wild-card race, Pittsburgh will now turn to Rudolph, who made his 2023 debut in the closing moments of Saturday’s game. The 28-year-old did not see the field last year, and the most recent of his 10 career starts came in 2021.
Rudolph was expected to find himself on a new team this offseason by means of a free agent departure. Signing with a new team could have created a clearer path to playing time, but in May he ultimately decided to re-up with the Steelers once again. That one-year pact worth the veteran minimum will now give the former third-rounder another opportunity to earn a role in Pittsburgh or a new team in the offseason.
Unlike Rudolph, Trubisky is on the books through 2025. The former No. 2 pick joined the Steelers on a two-year deal last spring, and he inked an extension this past offseason to continue serving as Pickett’s backup. Trubisky has not fared well during his time on the field this season, however, and today’s move marks a blow to the confidence the team has in him given the importance of their three-game stretch to close out the season.
Tomlin also announced safety Minkah Fitzpatrick will miss the Steelers’ contest against the Bengals. The All-Pro is dealing with a knee injury which forced him to leave the Colts loss. While Fitzpatrick’s’ absence will be felt on defense, plenty of attention will be on Rudolph and the offense as the Steelers look to end their losing streak and keep their playoff chances alive.
I thought firing canada was the end of this disaster but it was only the beginning.
Funny how fans can blame one man with a clipboard for all the seasons troubles. Football way more complicated than that
Funnier how fans can make excuses for the one man who is supposed to lead this team and keep them competitive. Oh, no! Injuries! Bad play on the field! Bad clock management! Poor play calling! Nope, not the head guy’s fault. Everybody except him must be to blame. Spare us.
What’s even funnier is when people like their own posts so they can seem legit
Funniest when people always need to find a way to interject Tomlin into things.
No doubt he needs to go but this argument is warn out
I thought the offense looked great under Faulkner until Kenny went down.
I can’t believe anyone who actually watches Steelers games could give Matt Canada any benefit of the doubt.
dude ran the same 3 plays for zero on repeat.
Ridiculous comment. Anyone who thought firing Canada was going to end the disaster doesn’t understand football.
Canada didn’t take his offense with him when he left.
It’s the same stupid system with different guys calling the same horrible plays.
Thank you for commenting for me and many other Steelers fans
I’m not even a Steelers fan lmao my name literally has ATL in it. I just think it’s funny when fanbase says “fire _____!” as if that’ll solve every issue a team has
Exactly. A mid season firing at a coordinator position isn’t going to lead to massive changes. It’s just a different guy carrying the clipboard with the same poorly designed plays on it.
Mid season changes may give a morale boost but it can’t fix dumb penalties, poor play and a poor scheme
Yeah, and it won’t help when you just don’t have the talent on the o-line. Let’s face it, everything is predicated on these guys being effective
They haven’t been
Add in two receivers who take plays off and yeah, we could have Bill Walsh calling plays and it wouldn’t matter
@TJECK109 finally someone who understands ball lol
I just completely disagree.
a playbook is one thing .. the play calling is completely different.
Matt Canadas play calling was terrible. Not only were they bad plays, but they were mostly designed plays, meaning no reads and just going to a pre-determined target.
We saw the same crap out of McDaniels in Oakland, and are seeing the Raiders offense moving the ball much better now that they also made the smart decision to move away from such a style.
You could take Rothlisberger, Dip him in the Fountain of Youth, And he couldn’t help them with those receivers. Pickens, Claypool, Antonio Brown, I’d love to hear the questions they ask receivers at the combine. Are you crazy? Have you ever quit on your team? Are you an underachiever? You’re our 1st round pick. Welcome!
I agree with Goku. The offense looked MUCH better for a hair of time that Pickett was in it. Now, others are right, midseason changes won’t completely change a lot most of the time, and usually are more for the public eye than anything. However, if your playcaller is the issue, it can help. In Pittsburgh’s case, the offense looked a lot better-albeit briefly-after the change. Now, it would be observed over time to really tell, but all elements of the offense looked better. Most notably to me was how much better Harris looked. They should have done it more, but they him downhill from under center a few times and got great gains from most of them. Unfortunately the playbook still includes him in other runs for which he is less suited, but he played significantly better immediately after the change. Again, that offensive line is by far Pittsburgh’s non-injury affected weak spot on the roster, and I’m not positive that any coaching will solve that on its own.
I probably disagree with all of you here. I’m not a Steelers fan, so take this as it is, but I would keep Tomlin another year to see if a new offensive coordinator and a few more line additions can help. I know Steelers fans are tired of Tomlin, but Pickett’s going to be there another year to prove himself as is. He looked much better in the brief time after Canada’s firing. There’s no guarantee that Pittsburgh will get a better coach than what they have now, so you shouldn’t fire a guy simply for being tired of him. You should fire him because you know that you can do better. To me, that means having a specific person or persons in mind that you can get. For all of Tomlin’s flaws, the team isn’t the worst right now in the league. There’s no urgency yet, as disappointing as they’ve The team is going to give one year for the Pickett combination to work with O-line investment and a new coordinator, anyway. You may as well use it as Tomlin’s last year to prove himself, as well. Remember, it could always get worse instead of better.
nah Tomlin’s time is up if they miss playoffs again.
it’s clear the team culture and lack of development are cancerous at this point.
Tomlins staff over the years has seen a dusturbing amount of turnover similar to the Browns HC role of the past.. and it’s not because Tomlins assistants are getting sniped by other organizations. they’re getting booed out of town and contracts are not being renewed.
Steelers HC is the top head coaching gig in the world.
a top young upcoming mind could work with Khan to make a fast, efficient, gritty, tight football program.
off the top of my head, even circus picks like Jim Harbaugh , Belichek, Gruden , Roethlisberger and Hines Ward are all on the table when a golden job like this becomes available
so ya.. Mike Tomlins fart swamp of mediocrity and losing to lousy teams mid-season is just starting to lose its shine in contrast.
Are any of those picks going to be better? Each would probably require a fundamental change in the scheme or roster that will take time to implement as is. Is there going to be improvement? Unless you have someone specific in mind, Tomlin should stay until you do. The problem is not that he’s losing, it’s that he’s not winning enough. It might be semantics, but that argument can quickly turn for the worse with a bad coach. I’m not saying that Pittsburgh can’t upgrade from Tomlin. I’m saying that there should be a specific target in mind. If there isn’t it’s best to not force the change just for the sake of doing so.
If, for instance, someone is sold on Ben Johnson and wants to bring him in, then the argument becomes “we should lose Tomlin to hire Ben Johnson” instead of the more directionless “fire Mike Tomlin”.
I don’t spend any time scouting OCs and DCs but plenty of teams find immediate results with new coaches and philosophy
Well, I’ll yield to the Steelers fans as y’all are more in tune with Pittsburgh specifically. I just would be wary of moving in the other direction if there’s no clear plan.
Tomlins always been pretty invisible. In some ways it’s made him invincible.
After a while you get tired of the talking in circles.
His jobs always been safe, but fans have been forced to become accustomed to a culture of recurring:
– WR diva issues going unchecked
– losing to the worst teams on the schedule as a tradition
– always making the wrong decision at the end of games on 4th down
– notorious for losing challenges
– lack of development outside the 1st round
– worst offensive scheming that’s shown no improvement in blocking since Mike Munchak left like 5 years ago
– worst clock management on a regular occurrence
Tomlin is safe as of week 16.. but every loss the seats going to amplify.
He desperately needs a win at home Saturday or the boos and fire Tomlin chants will pour down.
bill cowher had plenty of ideas to offer the offense on his recent appearance on Pat McAfee. def recommend giving that a watch.
but more interestingly is Tomlins own players Big Ben and Ryan Clark have had scathing reviews about the leadership and direction of the steelers.
Minkah also made a statement that’s up for debate as to who it was directed at…
but the key is that most are afraid to call out Tomlin directly.
Ryan Clark:
“The other piece of it for me is the state of that room, the wide receiver room From Antonio Brown to JuJu to Chase Claypool to Diontae to now George Pickens. There’s been a cancer in that room. I don’t know how it started. I don’t know if it’s coach [Mike] Tomlin’s ability or willingness to let you be authentically you, but something needs to change.”
Ben Roethlisberger:
You can’t afford in the second half of games to burn silly timeouts and to not have them late in the game,” Roethlisberger said. “To me, that’s bad coaching.”
“Who is grabbing someone by the face mask and saying, ‘That’s not what we do,'” he said. “Is that happening? Yes, you have guys on defense doing it, but you need guys on other sides of the ball doing it. … You need someone to stand up in that room, on offense, and be like, hey, this isn’t what it means to wear the black and gold.
“This isn’t what has been handed down from those teams of the ’70s. The Steel Curtain, the four Super Bowls, the Nolls, the Bradshaws, the Blounts. All those people, it’s unbelievable.
” I understand the further you get away from that, the harder it is unless it’s being passed down and carried the right way,” he said. “It just feels like that’s something that’s been lost on this team. I’ve felt that certain guys on the team aren’t in it for the team, they’re in it for themselves. Well, now some of the guys on the team are saying the same thing.”
I’ve always just avoided Ryan Clark’s “analysis” on all occasions, to be honest. As a player, he was one of my favorites to watch, and I always thought him to be underrated. As a commenter, he’s terrible. That’s not a comment on this specific quote directly. As far as that quote he kind of has a point, but I don’t think that Pickens’ immaturity reflects the team’s dysfunction. It’s more about an overall execution failure than one or two guys being divas. The bigger issue is that, today, the rest of the team isn’t executing. The offense lacking experience and leadership is probably why.
Roethlisberger makes a few good points, though, to back up what he says. Sometimes he says more than he should, but I think this was pretty fair. I can agree with all of that. Tomlin has never seemed to be much more than a supervisor to me. The hands off approach and simply trusting doesn’t work as well with a younger roster. That’s not to say that that’s bad as an approach, but if the supervision breaks down, it’s incumbent on that person to fix it. So I can see that. You make good points, I just would, again, make sure that there’s a clear direction going forward. I appreciate your sharing that commentary-didn’t want to make you think I didn’t read it.
haha no doubt. mainly a lot of copy and pasting quotes there, but I always enjoy banter and conversation with you. I’m a 3 hour podcast or book at the park kinda guy.
I like RC, hes a dawg, but I’ll admit I dong watch much mainstream “analysis” so don’t know what he’s saying on a regular basis
(well actually I do know: skripted pre determined opposing viewpoint insert topic, insert trigger point / insert click bait / rinse repeat / insert Stephen A. insert Shannon Sharpe insert NPC talking head )
but ya no clue how Tomlin saga will play out. should be fun to follow. just a little inside perspective from Steelertown.
should be very interesting if they lose-out these next 3 weeks.
tearing at the seams, but steelers are good at pulling wins out their a**
im retiring from football analysis AK
Hey, we’re unpaid for a reason
hahaha
H E double hockey sticks has frozen over.
No, that only freezes over when Steeler fans actually want Rudolph to start after how bad he has been in the past… err, well, I guess you’re right, it has frozen over.
I keep reminding people that Mason is the guy that lost his job to a guy named Duck.
How soon we forget and how desperate they are
Rudolph has been so bad that he has more TD’s and less INT’s than Pickett has in his career… In 7 less games…
Ouch you got me there…
But you fail to mention all of his masterful work was done with a different OC, and different OL
Believe it or not those do factor in
Oh no I do believe it, and I’m not expecting much out of Rudolph in all seriousness. But there’s not a good QB on this roster, except maybe Trace McSorley? lol? Idk it’s a dead end team right now and I’m depressed and ranting.
I’m with ya.
The yinzer in me traded tomlin for picks and then watt for more picks today.
Team has so many glaring needs. We are about to enter the 80s all over again I’m afraid
Are you telling me you fon’t have fond memories of Mark Malone, Bubby Brister, and Mike Tomczak??? LOL
Good luck with that, Steelers’ fans!
Might as well. Trubisky was pretty bad, and hasn’t been careful with the ball in those losses. They may as well see if Rudolph has a chance to offer anything else.
I’m not sure how Tomlin is supposed to magically make these players better, though. What is he supposed to do in this situation?
actually have a defense and o-line that are fundamentally sound and not always rely on only 1st round picks to fill any hole.
you know.. coach, develop, prepare for sub .200 teams
someone made a great point today, that when Mike T came in, this was a veteran team that already knew how to win; and at such a point a relaxed easy going HC was great for the locker room to continue what they were doing.
But now its a new team, young QB new players at every position; and this team needs discipline, proper development and strategic coaching.. Mike T just isn’t that guy for that role..
very clearly, in my opinion.
Tomlin also had better assistants back then. Dick LeBeau is one of the greatest coordinators of all time, at any position.
Arians was on the staff later, too. The assistants there haven’t been as strong lately, with all due respect to Keith Butler. The team leaders have also been talented, but not very…well, leader-like, particularly on offense. We all know which three in particular those were, even before the one person in particular today.
Not sure which is the worse option, Mitch Trubisky, one of the greatest draft busts of all time, or Mason Rudolph, the QB who fights defensive linemen with his bare hands. My vote is for the guy willing to go toe to toe with Myles Garett.
Worse for the Bears, was the passed on Mahomes for Mitch! Great scouting right there.
No, the very worst part of it is the Bears already had the #3 pick. To go to #2 here’s what Ryan Pace gave away:
here’s what Pace gave up to select Trubisky with the No. 2 pick:
Trades don’t get much worse than that. The Steelers are doing just fine with their Trubisky/backup project.
Well, in fairness, Mahomes got to take it easy in his first year by sitting behind a good starter in Alex Smith, and had one of the all time greatest offensive minds as his head coach. I highly doubt that he’d have capitalized on his talent and filed down his mistakes in Chicago the way that he did in K.C. Trubisky almost certainly wouldn’t been on Mahomes’ present level had their roles been reversed, but he almost certainly would have looked better with Andy Reid and company than he did with the Bears.
Very interesting notion. Would Trubisky have multiple super bowls to his name if he had gone to the Chiefs and Andy Reid instead. Patrick Mahomes would now be a Justin Fields position in Chicago, where he sometimes dazzles but mostly loses games on a wing and a prayer.
You might be right.
Defining “quality QB play” as 250 yards and 2 TD’s (not asking for the moon there, pretty much a bare minimum to win in today’s league)…
In how many games this season have the Steelers received quality QB play?
A- Zero. Not even once.
This latest injury really bones the team, they need to figure out what, if anything, they have in Pickett and it would have been preferable to do that this year, not next.
I’m not about to defend Pickett. I thought it was a proper draft decision and that he’d evolve. I was wrong
But I’m at a loss as to how any current starter could thrive behind what is easily the worst o-line in the league.
I’m confident they’re going to give Pickett another year but unless they blow up that line save for the rookie, I don’t see how anything improves
And that’s just the start. There are so many holes on this team—on both sides of the ball— that perhaps just starting from scratch by trading their big timers away for draft picks makes a lot of sense
I’d really like to see Kenny have one season with an adequate offensive scheme. I’ll give it one more season before I pass permanent judgement
To me, he’s jittery under fire—which we know is almost every play. He also tends to have tunnel vision
Guess my thought about Canada is this:
If Tomlin has oversight of everything, how did he allow this play calling to continue unless he agreed?
And then why did they seek to have Pickett throw dink and dunk variety passes, rarely throwing downfield and less over the middle?
20 games in and you wonder if they had doubts about Pickett’s abilities.
Otherwise, it is all just a mystery
Wouldn’t you be jittery with that OL in front of you?
I see what you are saying about the passes cause my son and I one week tried to name the number of passes thrown across the middle.
To me teams don’t fear the run or pass on this team. So they can sit in whatever defense they want and sent blitzes when they want.
There are times when Kenny misses an open player but they seem few and far between.
With the speed some of these guys I can’t for the life of me understand why they don’t have a crossing route.
I think this offense is so predictable that defenses just know whats coming.
Heck anyone in Pittsburgh watching the game knows what’s coming.
As for the play calling I think Tomlin dumbed down Canada. If you remember he was promoted with the reputation of using a ton of pre-snap motion to disguise plays while an OC in college. Saw a little early on and then it was gone.
I think tomlin hurt the system.
Interesting plan, TOD. Who has much trade value on the current Steelers?
I really would love to see the elite qbs in this Steelers offense. I don’t think they would succeed. The line is very inconsistent, the receivers are one trick ponies with diva mentalities, and the play calling is awful. There is never anyone open. This team stinks. Unless the defense puts the offense in position for 10 easy points a game in addition to no glaring mistakes on offense, they can’t win. Now that the defense is banged up and pickett, say what you want about him, but he doesn’t turn the ball over, js out, you are seeing how bad the offense is.
I get that, but right now, he can’t magically improve what he’s got. This is exactly my line of thought, here. We can blame Tomlin for a lot, but that offensive line is terrible and has been this bad-or worse-since the end of Ben’s career. Colbert overall was a good GM, and Khan has made a good pick or two, but it is absolutely imperative for that line to continue to improve before we can even have an adequate look at the offensive scheme or players. Jones is a good start, but that still leaves several other positions that need to be filled before the Steelers can realistically start to expect results.
Sorry, this reply wasn’t meant for you, orioles. I actually agree with your post completely. I’m having issues with the new comment system structure.
Please explain AK185. Replies still go to the threads on which you reply. There’s only one comment on this thread. How could you end up replying to the wrong comment?
I ask, as we’d like to fix the issue if there is one. If there isn’t an issue and it’s just a mistake, we’d like to know that too.
FYI, the current improvements are made to make it easier to read through two hundred and five hundred comment threads and to make it easier to see new comments and replies to your own comments.
If I knew, it’d be easier. But my comment was not meant for 2012orioles. So, this reply was meant for a different thread. I noticed on another article that my reply went to a comment left by crosseyedlemon, though it was directed at someone else. I came back here and saw this. I know that I did not mean to address this to 2012orioles, and I know that I have seen it on a couple other of my replies. Beyond that, I can’t say. The “he” in my reply refers to Mike Tomlin, whom orioles does not mention. So that comment was likely in response to another post above that does mention him.
Perhaps the issue that in the new system, many comments do not have a reply option, forcing you to reply to a different comment to post in the thread. You can observe this by reading how many replies mention the poster’s name in the response, which I personally have seen a lot more of lately. It seems today, though, that most of them do not have this issue anymore, whereas earlier they did. It wasn’t just retain users, either, but multiple users that had reply options in other spots or other articles. So perhaps whatever was causing that is gone. Thank you for trying to improve the site.
Thanks for the details, Ak185. The goal was to limit comment levels to three – only comments up to level two would allow replies. It confused readers more than it helped so we are bringing back the reply button to every comment. You won’t have to worry about a comment not including a reply button again.
Thank you. I’ve noticed the change, and it is much better. I appreciate your hard work and effort to cater to our silliness here.
Home sick with Covid Got a chance to do a deep dive into the behind the scenes of the Steelers and I highly recommend fellow Steeler fans do it as well.
Apparently Dan Rooney Jr holds entirely too much power in the Steelers hierarchy. He is officially number 2 behind Omar Khan but there has been a power struggle for years especially the draft between him & Colbert/Tomlin.
Matt Canada apparently is his guy. He was initially brought on by him & the changes to the coaching staff were all done to appease Canada & Tomlin had very minimal say in anything on the offensive side of the ball.
It is said he has been reeled in a bit over the Pickett pick. He wanted Malik Willis and was pulling his weight to get it & Tomlin & Colbert wanted Pickett.
And for the first time in forever Art sided with Colbert and made the final decision in his favor. Think it had more to do with Pickett being a Pitt guy & Art scared of a Marino 2.0 but that’s neither here nor there.
Sean Davis, Edmunds, McFarland, among a lot of other picks what his hands on. Not to say all were bad Heath Miller was his as well as Marvel Smith. And Colbert/Tomlin had some bad ones Green & Mike Adam’s & Artie Burns. Supposedly Rooney goes back to Alan Faneca & Willie Parker as an UDFA too.
Story is he was so enamored with Trubisky that he wanted to trade up to get him if they could over Mahomes & TJ was a Tomlin pick over even Colbert.
Rooney been on Trubisky since college.
Very interesting stuff I learned about the Rooney’s today. They got this great NFL image but they read more like an image of the Kennedy’s.
Where did you find this?
It’s amazing all the journalists in Pittsburgh and not one have ever mentioned this.
Must me the covid talking
What journalist in Pittsburgh is gonna bring negativity to anyone with the last name Rooney
Career suicide
Between articles and podcasts you can find where a lot more things are talked about.
Some people even think that’s why Tomlin hasn’t signed his extension because he wants to see how things play out for a year with Khan replacing Colbert.
Every extension for every coach in Steeler history has come with 2 yrs remaining on their contract until now but that’s not odd. All of a sudden Tomlin the pride n joy of the Rooney Rule doesn’t get an extension offer ?
There is a reason why he didn’t sign it
I have heard of an extension being offered. In fact, that was the talk all pre season
I tend to disagree with your comment about journalists here. I’m not a fan of Madden good or bad, but he had Pickett and the Steelers pegged before the season ever began
He believes Tomlin should be fired and consistently says it will never happen. In and of itself, that’s an indictment of the owner
Zeise, Starkey, Benz and Cook have written fair articles that call into question Tomlin’s ability to “reach” this batch of players.
And these guys were all hope-for-the-best varieties where the QB, team and Tomlin were concerned as the season rolled along
Sometimes you have to read between the lines. Where national media has sought to canonize Tomlin, most local guys have been fair and like the rest of us, somewhat amazed at how this has all fallen apart
* I have NEVER heard of an extension being offered
Jeez
And for the record I have been on here among other places being extremely outspoken against Tomlin & his coaching.
What I have learned about his coaching is that he is a tremendous motivator and able to get a bad roster to an overachieving status and as a coach he is able to take a good roster and have his decisions make them an underachieving team.
I believe Tomlin should be fired as well. I didn’t say career suicide by talking negatively about Tomlin I said it about negative talk about a Rooney. It’s clear they own the city & name Carrie’s huge weight throughout the NFL.
Anyone who said they heard an extension was never offered is crazy. That was anticipated & talked about all offseason. Then when nothing came about every local sports media personality was startled by that. So for me it wasn’t so far fetched that it was offered and he turned it down.
Idiot May very well be a conspiracy theory type scenario that never caught legs but after I heard it and did just the slightest bit of my own research a lot of it started sounding interesting.
I’m curious to see if the Bengals have a helmet swinger on defense as good as what the Browns had.
If they do I hope Mason plays dead this time
Just getting in the holiday spirit.
I call dibs on starting the week after.
Sorry. Duck Hodges is holding on line 1
At least we can hope that the “no losing seasons under Tomlin” era finally ends – as crowing about playing mediocre football needs to stop.
The Steelers early Christmas gift is giving us fans a break of watching Kenny Pickett suck at QB another week. Best thing I’ll get all year.
Yes, but Tomlin is still going to play Pickens because well, he’s a genius and all
I dunno. Even Orlovsky and Damien Woody were wondering if the “message has gotten stale” this morn
I don’t advocate anyone’s firing but it would be nice if “Mike T” decided to move on. It’s time
Pickens has to play. You can’t possibly slot Calvin Austin, Miles Boykin, or Allen Robinson in for more than 3 snaps a game. They shouldn’t even be on NFL rosters.
The Steelers are dead. Pickens got to go. Pickett is a waste of oxygen. Tomlin has lost the locker room if he even ever had it.
The Browns are actually going to finish ahead of us. The world should truly stop spinning.
Agree with everything but the first line
It won’t matter if he plays or not. This team is going nowhere. At least send a message. Try to rebuild a culture.
Hey, and the Browns are just a better team all around. I need to get this image of the Steelers of the Polamalu era back to Lambert’s day out of my head. We all do
This ain’t them, in any way