Cleaning House: Steelers Replace All Three QBs for Second Straight Offseason
With Russell Wilson signing with the New York Giants on Tuesday, the Pittsburgh Steelers will turn their entire quarterback room over for the second consecutive offseason.
The Steelers did not appear to make a concerted effort to keep Wilson, nor did they with third-stringer Kyle Allen, who left early in free agency for a job with the Detroit Lions. They did appear to want to keep Justin Fields, but he ended up agreeing to a two-year, $40 million contract with $30 million in guarantees with the New York Jets.
So far, the Steelers have signed two quarterbacks for 2025, bringing back former backup Mason Rudolph and signing away Miami Dolphins third-stringer Skylar Thompson. They will likely add one of two more, with Aaron Rodgers their prime target in free agency, and the Steelers also showing interest in later-round option in the 2025 NFL Draft like Jalen Milroe from Alabama and Quinn Ewers from Texas.
But no matter what, it will be three new faces in 2025, just like it was three new faces in 2024. Last offseason, the Steelers allowed Rudolph and Mitch Trubisky to leave in free agency and traded Kenny Pickett to the Philadelphia Eagles. They were replaced by Wilson and Allen through free agency and Fields in a trade with the Chicago Bears.
After an unprecedented streak of primacy at the quarterback position for Ben Roethlisberger ended in 2021, the Steelers have had a revolving door.
Trubisky, Pickett, Rudolph, Wilson and Fields have all started games over the last three seasons and all but Fields started for reasons other than injury to the quarterback ahead of him on the depth chart.
Trubisky began the 2022 season as the starter. He was benched for Pickett mid-year. Pickett missed time with an ankle injury in 2023, but lost his job to Rudolph and did not regain it. Rudolph was let go and replaced by Wilson, who missed six games to injury in 2024.
In total, Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin has changed the depth chart starting quarterback of his team five times since the end of the 2021 season — and he’ll do it one more time before the start of the 2025 season.
He never made such a change in his first 14 seasons as the Steelers head coach.