{"id":248986,"date":"2026-07-22T02:35:23","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T02:35:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/248986\/"},"modified":"2026-07-22T02:35:23","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T02:35:23","slug":"kaboly-mason-rudolph-is-a-stone-cold-lock-to-make-pittsburghs-roster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/248986\/","title":{"rendered":"Kaboly: Mason Rudolph Is A ‘Stone-Cold Lock’ To Make Pittsburgh’s Roster"},"content":{"rendered":"

We all know who the Pittsburgh Steelers\u2019 starting quarterback will be this season, but the battle for the backup job may be training camp\u2019s most anticipated competition. If Drew Allar\u2019s roster spot is already secure, could it really come down to Will Howard or Mason Rudolph for one remaining quarterback spot? If so, local insider Mark Kaboly has bad news for Howard.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m gonna call Mason a stone-cold lock to make the team,\u201d Kaboly said via Steelers Collective on YouTube<\/a>. \u201cHe might not get many reps in camp, and it\u2019ll be like, \u2018Mason\u2019s in trouble, his job\u2019s gonna be in jeopardy.\u2019 I\u2019m playing around a little bit, but I still think he\u2019s gonna make the squad. Regardless of what happens, I believe he\u2019s locked in.\u201d<\/p>\n

If Rudolph is a lock, that would leave just two avenues for Howard to make the team: one of the other quarterbacks lands on IR, or Pittsburgh breaks precedent and keeps four.<\/p>\n

Mike McCarthy has flirted with the idea of keeping four, but he\u2019s also never kept four quarterbacks throughout his career. He\u2019s also talked about three being the ideal number to develop the room.<\/p>\n

Howard received most of the QB2 reps throughout OTAs and minicamp. There\u2019s no reason to think that will change for the start of training camp, but Kaboly\u2019s contention is that it doesn\u2019t matter.<\/p>\n

There is some logic to the idea, especially with the Steelers being one of the highest spenders of both cash and cap space this year. They didn\u2019t bring Aaron Rodgers back to transition the franchise, but rather to contend now with a very expensive roster. Would they really enter the season with zero combined starts between QB2 and QB3? Rudolph at least offers eight years and 19 starts worth of experience.<\/p>\n

Kenny Pickett\u2019s all-world preseason performance in 2023 taught us that the preseason doesn\u2019t matter, or at least it isn\u2019t an accurate indicator of regular season success.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got burned by Kenny Pickett. I don\u2019t care what you did in preseason and training camp,\u201d Kaboly said. \u201cOnce you get into the real games, things tend to change. So no matter what I see from him, I don\u2019t think he should be the No. 2 this year. I think he could be the No. 1 next year. You\u2019d have to keep him on the team though.\u201d<\/p>\n

It might be irresponsible to enter the season without any experience to back up a 43-year-old quarterback. But would it not also be irresponsible to let a player walk who could be the starter next year?<\/p>\n

Howard has received too much praise this offseason by key decision makers in Pittsburgh to be discarded like that. McCarthy said he will \u201cdefinitely\u201d be a starter<\/a> in the league one day.<\/p>\n

I get Kaboly\u2019s logic, but I certainly don\u2019t get his confidence in the outcome.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We all know who the Pittsburgh Steelers\u2019 starting quarterback will be this season, but the battle for the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":248987,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[22892,22365,73,75,74,106560,995,39813],"class_list":["post-248986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-mark-kaboly","tag-mason-rudolph","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-steelers-collective","tag-trending","tag-will-howard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248986"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248986\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/248987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}