Steelers address perceived need at QB
Perhaps this is a sign that I have bought into too much of what the Pittsburgh Pirates have been selling over the past three decades or so, but I was pretty happy when the Steelers addressed the future of the most important position in football, quarterback, rather than mortgage it, in the third round of this year’s draft.
Despite what Ben Roethlisberger has been saying in his own passive-aggressive way, ownership made the right choice to take a step in shoring up the future behind center.
In fact, the team did it in a way that seemingly should have made everyone happy, including Big Ben.
When the Steelers were up during Round One, the ultimate boom-or-bust quarterback prospect, Louisville’s Lamar Jackson, was available for the taking. Instead of rolling the dice, the team did what it typically does by drafting Virginia Tech’s Terrell Edmunds to compete for a starting job at safety.
With no inside linebackers grading out high enough to pick in the second round, the team got Roethlisberger the best wide receiver still available in Oklahoma State’s James Washington. Washington led Division I in receiving yards last season, comes with a much cleaner off-the-field resume than the now-Oakland Raider Martavis Bryant and is a tall, long-armed big play threat.
With Mason Rudolph still sitting there at 76th pick, the team knew it was getting a bargain on a player that some had graded as high as a low first-round to mid-second round selection. With Roethlisberger stating just before the draft that he wanted to play several more years and Rudolph looking like a guy that is at least a year or two away from being an everyday starter, this should have satisfied all parties involved in the process.
Unfortunately, the selection seems to have cast some doubt on the supposed maturation process that took No. 7 from a motorcycle-riding, heavy-partying egotist to the trusted face of the franchise. Even if Roethlisberger has no interest in mentoring the man who could eventually spell the end of his time as the Steelers’ starting quarterback, that’s something that needs to be discussed within the locker room and coach’s offices.
The leader of one of the most storied franchises in the NFL should know that.
It’s hardly the first time a marquee quarterback has been forced to address his own professional mortality. Whether it was Brett Favre with Aaron Rodgers or Tom Brady with Jimmy Garoppolo, the drafting of a younger player doesn’t necessarily mean the end of an incumbent’s career. Favre played three more years with the Packers before finding success with the Jets and Vikings, and Brady actually outlasted Garoppolo in Foxboro.
In case he has forgotten, Big Ben’s own career started in a similar fashion to Rudolph’s. Do you think Tommy Maddox, who had to use the XFL as a springboard just to get back to the big show was thrilled when the team used not a third, but a first-round selection to bring in direct competition? He definitely wasn’t and he was vocal about it for a time.
Maddox lost the starting job after the team drafted Ben in 2004 and lasted just one more season in pro football. It is seemingly impossible that the conclusion to the Roethlisberger/Rudolph saga will end in a similar fashion. However, the Super Bowl-winning star may just want to keep his focus on what he knows he can control: his performance on the field.
What will ultimately define the final chapter of Roethlisberger’s storied and Hall of Fame-worthy career are the choices he makes in dealing with Rudolph. He’s already delivered two Lombardi trophies to the Steel City and has helped transform a franchise more closely tied to defense than any other, to the most potent offense around.
However, if the lasting impression of him is that of an insecure diva unwilling to yield even a bit of the limelight, his will be a tarnished legacy. Let’s hope that is not what serves as his primary motivation.