Heading into Week 12, there were more than a few Pittsburgh Steelers fans who wanted to see Mason Rudolph under center against the Chicago Bears—and I'll admit that I, cautiously, was one of them. But it wasn't because I'm a believer in Rudolph; it was because I didn't want to see Aaron Rodgers take the field.
Rodgers was coming off arguably the worst month of football in his NFL career, in which we saw his production dip drastically in five consecutive games. To make matters worse, the nearly 42-year-old quarterback suffered a fractured left wrist in the Steelers' Week 11 contest against the Cincinnati Bengals, and Mike Tomlin didn't view him as healthy enough to suit up against the Bears.
Before the injury, Rodgers was only respectable with box score numbers (like touchdown-to-interception ratio). Nearly every advanced metric proved he hasn't performed well this season.
Leading up to Week 12, the aging quarterback ranked 33rd in intended air yards per pass (5.9), 35th in completed air yards per completion (3.6), and 35th in completed air yards per pass attempt (2.4), per advanced passing stats from Pro Football Reference. These stats show that Rodgers' average completion distance isn't even making it two-and-a-half yards past the line of scrimmage on the season, and in recent weeks, it's been even worse.
With Rudolph, there was at least a glimmer of hope. Unfortunately, the long-time backup quarterback came crashing back down to earth in Week 12.
Mason Rudolph has proven again that he's just a quality backup for the Pittsburgh Steelers (nothing more)
As if we didn't already know this, Rudolph just gave us a painful reminder of why he's not currently starting on another NFL team. Against the Chicago Bears in Week 12, Rudolph recorded just 171 yards on 31 pass attempts (5.5 yards per attempt) while throwing for one touchdown and one interception.
In this contest, Rudolph's completed air yards per completion came just 1.5 yards past the line of scrimmage, while his 1.1 completed air yards per pass attempt was as bad as it gets. Shockingly, Rudolph's 57.3 QBR against the Bears was still better than Rodgers' average QBR from 2022 through 2025.
Of Rudolph's 31 attempts against Chicago, seven came behind the line of scrimmage, while 18 came within five yards of the line of scrimmage, per Next Gen Stats charting. What's most egregious, however, is that Rudolph only attempted two passes over the middle of the field beyond eight yards—and one of these went for a touchdown.
READ MORE: Steelers Week 12 collapse leaves fans questioning everything about this team
To be fair, this is hardly all Rudolph's fault. While the 2018 third-round pick underwhelmed in a must-win game against Chicago, the all-22 film suggested that there weren't many opportunities to throw the ball over the middle of the field, based on Arthur Smith's route concepts.
We can skip right to the top and point the blame at head coach Mike Tomlin. Tomlin's conservative philosophy of avoiding potentially risky throws over the middle of the field plays a heavy factor into Pittsburgh's decisions on offense, and he may have urged Smith to be even more conservative in Week 12 with Rodgers out.
We saw Mason Rudolph have an impressive stretch of games late in the 2023 season, which led him to be the starting quarterback in a Wild Card game against the Buffalo Bills. But that's not who Mason Rudolph is. He's a quality backup quarterback who can start in a pinch and really nothing more.