The Seahawks are prepared to face an upstart Mason Rudolph on Sunday as the Steelers fight to make the playoffs in a must-win game. Rudolph lifted the team when he put up the best stat line for a Steelers quarterback since 2018, leading to the most convincing win of the season.
Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll sees plenty to like about Rudolph. He has a live arm and will give teams a run for their money. Second, the confidence that Rudolph played with against Cincinnati infected the whole team, giving them a boost from the morale standpoint.
“He’s been around for a few years. He’s started a number of games. We’ve got all kinds of film on him, so we can see him,” Carroll said. “Big strong armed, good-looking kid. Looked great the other night, dropped some dimes on them, and made some huge plays, and gave them a real spark where they jumped to 21 to zip right off the bat. It’s obvious that he lifted them. They got great play out of other guys too, turnovers and all of that helped, but he was right in the middle of all of that.”
Rudolph finished the game against the Bengals with 290 yards on 17 of 27 passing, two touchdowns and no interceptions. His 124 passer rating was a career high and the highest for a Steelers quarterback since Ben Roethlisberger in 2018.
The Steelers will be relying on the veteran to come through in another near-must-win game to keep their playoff hopes alive.
“We’re going to try to win again this week,” Rudolph said. “That’s always the goal. So, big challenge in going out west to a tough, well from what I’ve heard, quite a tough venue to play at and again a great team.”
Rudolph has to step up in a big way to keep the performance up, but other backups have done it all season. He could be the next in line to continue the run of high-level play from backups, even if the shelf life on that is generally short.