PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – Not a usual position for the Steelers. You think about the last two decades; how many times did the Steelers wonder who their starting quarterback would be going into the last practice of the week? Especially, when it could be one of three.
"When your starting quarterback is maybe not available, you don't know where he's going to be, that presents a different situation," said Steelers Offensive Coordinator Matt Canada. "I think we're fortunate to have a really deep quarterback room, I'll say that. We've got guys that have all started. Mason [Rudolph] started games. Obviously, Mitch [Trubisky] has started a lot of football games, started games this year. Mason started games here for us in the past."
"You never want to be in this situation, but I think we're in as good a spot as we could be with where we're at. You just have to proceed forward and get ready to play."
If Pickett is able to practice full on Friday, he will most likely be cleared to play. Kenny is your starter. But with Mike Tomlin not saying Trubisky would start if Pickett can't, it's created what appears to be another training camp battle between Trubisky and Rudolph.
"Oh, it's just putting ourselves in the best position to play on Sunday, however things come down," Canada said. "Again, there's a little bit of us waiting to see kind of how things go. So, it's just kind of protecting ourselves the best way we can and moving forward as those decisions come down."
Canada said the splitting of reps between Rudolph and Trubisky is as much to get Mason ready in case he would play. What the offensive coordinator is getting at is if Pickett is ruled out and Trubisky starts, Rudolph needs to be ready in case of injury or maybe even ineffectiveness.
"Mason's been a third that hasn't had a lot of reps at all," Canada said. "So, you still want to prepare your football team to get ready to play. I don't think it's probably that abnormal to get them both ready, give them reps. We'll obviously have a plan with that, and we'll see where we're at as things come down with the protocol through today and tomorrow."
Again, this would be a lot clearer if Tomlin just said Trubisky is the back-up and would start in case Pickett is ruled out. He discussed the back-up quarterbacks as two and two-A. Had that really been the case, it wouldn't be as critical for Rudolph to get all of this work.
Is Trubisky being punished for throwing three costly interceptions in the loss to Baltimore?
"No, no," Canada said. "Again, you guys are all here. We've had two guys getting a lot of reps, and Mason hasn't gotten reps. So, I think we certainly don't want to have happen what happened on Sunday, but on the fifth play the game, our quarterback got banged out. I think it would be a disservice to everybody to sit there and have Mason come in and play not having had any reps."
"As we proceed forward, I think it's our job to make sure he's ready to play, when and if that would occur.
Obviously, we don't want that to occur."
It makes it sound like Trubisky will be the starter. Why just not say that from the beginning? One more practice will likely determine a lot.
