PITTSBURGH (AP) — Mike Tomlin doesn’t want to talk about the future. Mason Rudolph or Kenny Pickett either.
Considering the Pittsburgh Steelers still have plenty to play for when their topsy-turvy regular season wraps up on Saturday in Baltimore with a chance to inch toward a playoff berth that seemed unlikely just two weeks ago, that’s probably wise.
There’s still plenty on the line — in the short term anyway — for a team that has ping-ponged between intriguing and inert for four solid months. The Steelers can reach the postseason in multiple ways, most of them reliant on beating the Ravens (13-3) and getting help on Sunday from either Tennessee or Miami.
No matter how the weekend goes, given Pittsburgh’s wildly uneven play it’s hard to imagine the Steelers sticking around in the playoffs for long should they get there, setting the stage for an offseason where they might have to re-evaluate the most important position on the team.
And it’s all thanks to a player rendered an afterthought on the depth chart for the better part of four years.
Rudolph’s solid and occasionally spectacular play has given Pittsburgh’s moribund offense a welcome if somewhat unexpected jolt. The Steelers have topped 30 points in consecutive weeks for the first time since 2020. They put up 468 yards in Seattle, a place the franchise had won just once in nine tries previously.
Now, the player set to become a free agent in March who wondered if he would be getting into commercial real estate by the end of 2024 looks like someone who will be on an NFL roster this time next year. Maybe even in Pittsburgh.
“I love playing for this team and love winning games,” Rudolph said Tuesday. “We’ll keep trying to do that.”
Rudolph has been able to do — over the course of two games anyway against defenses ranked near the bottom of the league — what Pickett and Mitch Trubisky have mostly failed to for the past two years: make plays downfield with his arm and get the Steelers to the end zone with regularity.
The player who first caught the eye of then-Steelers general manager Kevin Colbert while lighting up the University of Pittsburgh for 497 yards passing and five touchdown passes in an Oklahoma State win at Acrisure Stadium in 2017 is averaging 11.1 yards per pass attempt since taking over for an ineffective Trubisky.
Yes, it’s a small sample size. Still, it’s symbolic of what Tomlin called Rudolph’s “calculated risk-taking” approach, an approach that Pickett has failed to truly embrace.
In the span of two weeks, Rudolph’s emergence has shifted the focus away from things such as Tomlin’s hold on the locker room and wide receiver George Pickens’ fickle relationship with reporters (and run blocking) and toward what the Steelers will do at quarterback in 2024.
Tomlin has been Pickett’s biggest supporter from the day Pittsburgh selected the former Pitt star in the first round of the 2022 draft. He began the 2023 season bullish on Pickett’s development, saying he expected Pickett to “kill it.”
For a variety of reasons, it simply hasn’t happened. Pickett has just six touchdown passes on the season, the fewest in the league among any quarterback with at least 300 pass attempts.
On Tuesday, rather than talk about starting during a potentially season-defining game against their biggest rival, Pickett spent it denying rumors he refused to serve as Rudolph’s backup in Seattle after recovering from right ankle surgery.
It’s not exactly what the Steelers envisioned in September after a high-flying preseason that sent expectations soaring.
Those expectations haven’t been met. Still, maybe Rudolph and the Steelers find a way to sneak in. It’s happened before. If they do, Rudolph probably keeps his job and Pittsburgh heads into the offseason likely having to rethink the configuration of its quarterback room.
For a team seemingly stuck in NFL purgatory — too good to be bad, too bad to be good — the Steelers never are boring.
WHAT’S WORKING
The shared workload of Najee Harris and Jaylen Warren. The two running backs have each surpassed 1,000 yards of total offense, giving the Steelers perhaps the best one-two combination at the position in the league. They’ve also done it without any underlying drama, refreshing for a team that has seen a season full of it among other position groups.
WHAT NEEDS HELP
While the defense is finding a way to keep points down despite a seemingly never-ending string of injuries at inside linebacker and safety, yards have been easy to come by. The Steelers have given up an average of 353 yards over their past four games and now face the NFL’s second-highest-scoring offense, though one that could be without MVP favorite Lamar Jackson if the Ravens choose to rest him for the playoffs.
STOCK UP
Watt became the second Steeler to be voted team MVP by his teammates for a fourth time when he received the honor on Tuesday. The perennial All-Pro is tied for the NFL lead with 17 sacks and has a chance at winning a second AP Defensive Player of the Year Award if he can make a late push with another dynamic performance against the Ravens.
STOCK DOWN
Center Mason Cole’s shotgun snaps have been an issue at times throughout the season and while he’s worked at it repeatedly, there are still a handful of snaps a game that threaten to get away from Rudolph, whose quick reflexes averted disaster on a couple of occasions in Seattle.
INJURIES
Safeties Minkah Fitzpatrick (knee) and LB Elandon Roberts (pectoral) didn’t practice on Tuesday and odds of them playing seem remote at best.
KEY NUMBER
1 — the number of regular-season games — out of 275 — during Tomlin’s 17-year tenure in which the Steelers have been mathematically eliminated from the playoffs.
NEXT STEPS
Try to keep the momentum going in Baltimore on Saturday and hope for a little help from Miami and/or Tennessee on Sunday to reach the playoffs.
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