Ryan Clark is the latest media member to rip Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Mason Rudolph.
Ryan Clark is not going to be the least bit happy if Mason Rudolph is the Pittsburgh Steelers starting quarterback entering the 2022 NFL season.
Rudolph may have been a good college player at Oklahoma State, but he fell to the third round of the 2018 NFL Draft for a reason. He has the look and all the physical traits of being a franchise quarterback. However, it seems as though he is just a guy in the Steelers organization. With Ben Roethlisberger retiring, Clark made a bold claim about what happens if Rudolph starts in 2022.
“If Mason Rudolph is the starting quarterback for the Pittsburgh Steelers entering 2022, they are no longer the Pittsburgh Steelers I love or the fans of Pittsburgh love.”
Ryan Clark crushes Mason Rudolph as the Pittsburgh Steelers next quarterback
The Steelers are in a terrible spot at quarterback. Rudolph is not the guy and Dwayne Haskins is absolutely not the guy. While they could try their luck in free agency or orchestrate a blockbuster trade, odds are, the Steelers will need to find their guy just like how they found Big Ben and Terry Bradshaw before that: In the draft! Unfortunately, this is not a great draft for quarterbacks at all.
Out of necessity, at least a few quarterbacks will be overdrafted and taken in the first round, including Pitt Panthers star Kenny Pickett. Not everyone is sold on him, but the last Pitt quarterback with this much hype coming out was Dan Marino, who the Steelers passed on in 1983. It was a lot of Bubby Bristers and Neil O’Donnells in between Bradshaw and Roethlisberger.
As far as Clark disowning the Steelers if they trot out Rudolph Week 1, who else is he going to root for? Is Clark going to be a card-carrying member of the media for the Washington Commanders? Maybe he will just double-down and be a part of Brian Kelly’s family in Baton Rouge? Either way, the Steelers are going to regress massively if Rudolph is Pittsburgh’s Week 1 starting quarterback.
If the Steelers do not solve their quarterback issues, they are not going to matter going forward.