Gauging the confidence levels of 6 new starting quarterbacks

#5 Mason Rudolph – Fairly low

Rudolph went for almost 13000 yards and 86 touchdowns through three years at a starter at Oklahoma State, while averaging 9.4 yards per attempt. He was a Heisman candidate for most of his senior year and ended up being a third-round pick, who I didn’t think should have been in the conversation with the big five last year.

Ironically enough Ben Roethlisberger commented on the selection shortly after being surprising to him since he thought the Steelers could have used some help other positions better, but now the second-year man will start the rest of the season with Ben on IR.

After T.J. Watt intercepted a pass off the hands of a 49ers running back to set the offense up in field goal range straight away, these were the first three plays for the offense.

A checkdown to James Conner due to being hesitant to push the ball to an open Vance McDonald, a wrong decision on an RPO play, where Juju Smith-Schuster got the ball on a slip screen, even though there was a three-on-two situation for the defense in terms of blockers and then a designed screen to Juju.

On the second possession, Rudolph missed a wide-open Diontae Johnson on a square-in on third-and-five after a couple of runs. After the following punt, it was newly acquired Minkah Fitzpatrick on a pick of the hands of Dante Pettis and took it inside the opposing 25. However, the only plays that resulted in any positive yardage came on screen and run plays and the Steelers had to settle for three once again.

However, San Francisco did their best to throw the game away, as they fumbled inside the Steelers ten after a good drive. Pittsburgh’s offense stayed with the theme of not gaining any yardage on passes beyond the line of scrimmage, as Rudolph missed open throws to McDonald and Johnson.

Yet another turnover inside the PIT then gave the ball back to the offense, but they answered with one more three-and-out. After the 49ers got their first points of the game, Rudolph finally completed a couple of easy passes on a crossing and quick-out route, but remained erratic inside the pocket and ended up punting the ball again.

While Rudolph threw a couple of touchdowns in the second half, I was not excited about what I see from him whatsoever.

He tossed a stupid interception, trying to hit Juju on the scramble drill with a defender right underneath it and he did not complete a pass that travelled more than ten yards through the air until hitting the rookie Johnson, who just absolutely burned his corner from the line.

His first touchdown came on a fairly well-placed pass to Juju, who went 66 of the 76 yards after the catch. Outside of those two passes his yards almost exclusively came off-screen passes and the Steelers could not capitalize on four turnovers by the Niners. That game could have easily been a blowout.

I thought he was alright the week before when he took over for Ben, but once again almost all of his success came on wide-open passes within five yards or behind the line of scrimmage, plus he threw a bad pick on what should have been the game-tying two-point conversion.

His only big play came on an underthrown ball to Juju off a flea-flicker, which should have been a touchdown if the pass travelled further downfield. And the result only was that close because the defense returned a Seattle fumble to the opposing three-yard line.

I didn’t think the Steelers could stay in playoff contention when I first heard the news on Ben and now I’m pretty certain about that.