Some Steelers fans still have high hopes for Mitch Trubisky, but here’s why there’s no scenario in which the veteran QB plays in Pittsburgh in 2023.
As fantastic as he has been for this franchise, most fans were ready to be done with Ben Roethlisberger by the end of the 2021 season. The 39-year-old quarterback severely lacked big-play ability and mobility to buy time in the pocket.
Much of the fan base was excited when the Pittsburgh Steelers signed Mitch Trubisky to a two-year deal early in the offseason, though most understood that Trubisky was going to be nothing more than a stop-gap player, some thought the former second overall pick from 2017 might be able to revitalize his fallen NFL career.
Sadly, this isn’t going to be the case in Pittsburgh. Regardless of how the QB race plays out or how much Trubisky impresses on the Steelers this year, I don’t see any scenario in which he is even on the roster in 2023.
Steelers won’t have Trubisky in 2023
This has nothing to do with Trubisky’s talent level and everything to do with how things played out over the past several months. When the Steelers selected Kenny Pickett in the first round of the 2022 NFL Draft, this should have been your first clue that Trubisky isn’t sticking around for long.
As a 24-year-old rookie, Mike Tomlin is not going to want Pickett riding the bench for two seasons before first coming onto the scene as a 26-year-old.
So why can’t Trubisky be Pickett’s backup next year? There are a couple of reasons for this, but the most important is because of salary cap purposes. Because of the way that Kevin Colbert structured Trubisky’s contract, the vertarn quarterback has a camp hit of just $3.66 million this year, via Over the Cap. However, in doing so, this means that he would cost the team over $10.6 million against the cap in 2023 — a number that Pittsburgh isn’t going to pay.
While some teams are willing to fork up good money to backup quarterbacks, the Steelers should not be willing to spend this much on Tribisky when they already have their starter of the future on the team. By cutting Trubisky next offseason, Pittsburgh would instantly save $8 million in cap space (which seems like the obvious move).
In addition, Trubisky isn’t going to want to stick around and rot on the bench when he could be fighting for a starting job somewhere else in the league. This obviously doesn’t mean that the veteran QB will earn a chance to start again, but that opportunity isn’t going to come in Pittsburgh, and he knows it.
At the end of the day, there is almost no incentive for either side to try to make this work following the 2022 season, as the Steelers could save cap space with their franchise QB hopefully in place and Trubisky could look for a chance to start elsewhere. If Trubisky even gets the chance to be the starter to begin the season, he would have to play like a Pro Bowl-level quarterback for the Steelers to reconsider his future with the team.