Mueller: With padded practices here, Steelers should open up QB competition
The Steelers have yet to put the pads on at St. Vincent, and anyone that knows anything about Mike Tomlin knows that he takes everything that happens during “football in shorts” with a grain of salt. It doesn’t get real until the hitting starts, and all that.
Still, it doesn’t take a genius to see that through the first week of training camp, the quarterback battle that was supposed to break out has not materialized. Far from it, actually.
Kendrick Green and Kevin Dotson at left guard? That’s a battle. Those guys are splitting reps, and Dotson acknowledged that it was a competition in plain, blunt terms. Robert Spillane mixing in with Myles Jack and Devin Bush at inside linebacker? Seems like that’s a situation worth monitoring, particularly if Spillane continues to see significant time with the starters in the preseason.
Quarterback couldn’t be more different. Mitch Trubisky is the starter. Mason Rudolph is the backup. Kenny Pickett is third string. The roles are clearly defined.
After two days of not getting a chance in “seven shots,” Pickett finally got a rep on Saturday, throwing a touchdown on a fade to Tyler Vaughns, who just got himself in bounds.
“Reps are going to come,” Tomlin said when asked about Pickett’s rep. “Not only for him, but for everyone. We are at the very early stages of this.”
Perhaps that will prove true, but it sure seems like the head coach has a defined pecking order, one that doesn’t involve Pickett having a serious chance to win the job, even though it’s common knowledge that Tomlin puts exponentially more emphasis on what happens with pads on versus not.
In fact, the guy with the most chance to turn this into a real competition is – gasp – Mason Rudolph, last seen one-hopping what would have been a go-ahead touchdown pass to Ray-Ray McCloud in last year’s desultory tie against Detroit.
By all accounts, Rudolph has looked the most accurate and polished of the three thus far, which I suppose makes sense, on account of this being his fifth year with the team. It remains to be seen, however, whether or not he’ll get a shot to run with the ones. So far, Trubisky has had that privilege.
Pickett, in keeping with the theme, has only run with third-string players. Emphasis on “run” there, because he’s largely been running for his life behind a nonexistent offensive line. He hasn’t been very good yet, but it’s impossible to get a gauge on how he’s actually doing, because some of the players he’s lining up with won’t be playing professional football in two months.
Perhaps Tomlin really does intend to give Rudolph and Pickett a fair chance to win the job, and make this a truly open competition. Trubisky is the most experienced starter of the bunch, despite this being his third team in three years. It many ways, it makes sense to have Rudolph stay as the backup, while Pickett gets his feet wet in his first camp.
It might even make sense to keep that hierarchy early this week, when the pads go on. But I certainly hope Tomlin decides to mix things up and give Pickett in particular a shot with better teammates. Experience aside, Trubisky simply doesn’t have an impressive enough resume to warrant total deference. All the talk about his career rehabilitation in Buffalo, or the stacked deck working against him in Chicago belies one fact: the Steelers got him this offseason for a relative pittance, at least in terms of veteran starting quarterback money.
That suggests a few things: Trubisky and his agent weren’t willing to risk a long stay on the open market, and the open market may not have been too interested in his services, despite the hype train kicking into overdrive a few months back.
With that in mind, why clear the path for him? If he wins the job fair and square, so be it. If Pickett really does look like he needs some time to adjust to the NFL game, fine. But if Trubisky starts to flag, if even Rudolph looks better than him, there’s no reason to play favorites. The biggest commitment the team has to any quarterback is to Pickett. It shouldn’t even be a guarantee that Trubisky is on the roster for Week 1 if Rudolph and Pickett both look good.
Perhaps Tomlin shares these sentiments, and is merely playing things close to the vest. If that’s the case, I hope that starting today, business starts to pick up in a big way.
This article originally appeared on Beaver County Times: Mueller: With padded practices here, Steelers should open up QB competition
