The Pittsburgh Steelers top QB options for the future post-2020

The Pittsburgh Steelers have been enjoying success with Ben Roethlisberger ending the first quarter of the 2020 season at 3-0. But father time is undefeated.

While Ben Roethlisberger has been playing well, it is not hard to imagine Ben retiring after 2020. I still think the Pittsburgh Steelers will be playing in, and more than likely winning, the super bowl this season. I would not be surprised if Ben takes the same route Jerome Bettis did by retiring on the greatest height a football player can reach while playing. If this happens, where do the Steelers go from here?

Looking at the Steelers current quarterbacks on the roster, I don’t think I see a clear successor. Mason Rudolph was tied for the 48th best QB in the NFL’s QB index for 2019. The only requirement to be on this list was to start at least 1 game. With there being a total of only 57 quarterbacks in the NFL that made this list it is unlikely that a future franchise quarterback would be in the bottom 17% of quarterbacks who just played a game. The other options would include Devlin Hodges, who is relegated to the practice squad but ranked 46th on the index, and Josh Dobbs. Dobbs was traded by the Steelers in 2019, which just shows the lack of faith they have in the possibility of Dobbs becoming the future signal-caller for the black and gold.

So we can probably assume that the Steelers’ next franchise QB is going to be found outside of the current roster. The 3 ways you can add someone onto your roster are through free agency, trade, or the draft. Let’s take a look at some of the best options for each avenue the Steelers could take and then I’ll give you my favorite player from each avenue.